Lullay, Thou little tiny Child Bye, bye, lulloo, lullay And smile as dreaming, Little One Bye, bye, lulloo, lullay Sleep now, lulloo, lullayOh sister, too, what may we do To preserve on this day This sweet Youngling for whom we sing Dream now, lulloo, lullay Bye, bye, lulloo, lullayAnd when the stars align aright In their far venture stay Then smile as dreaming, Little One, Sleep now, lulloo, lullay Bye, bye, lulloo, lullay
Hastur the King, yellow raging Set signs within his play By his decree, insanity All lucid thoughts to slay All lucid thoughts to slay
Lullay, Thou little tiny Child Bye, bye, lulloo, lullay And smile and dream of stars that SCREAM Bye, bye, lulloo, lullay Sleep now, lulloo, lullay
All in all, you’re just another completely unique, custom-painted, hand-crafted by indigenous Brazilians, innovation-block(TM) in the super happy fun wall. Stand still, laddie, and take your medication.
I have been in Norway for about a year now, writing dialogue for the Age of Conan computer game. Now, it seems, my pen will take me to Canada as Funcom has offered me a continuing gig at their new game studio in Montreal. I’ll likely start there in August—with a trip home to Chicagoland first.
I’m trying to convince Odin that it’s nothing personal.
I went to a heavy metal bar last night, which seems a fitting thing to do while I’m in Scandinavia. This last sentence doesn’t necessarily fit in with its fellows above, except that it happens to come to mind.
Oliver, a fellow Funcom employee—whom I’ve learned to keep my notepad and pen at the ready around, as he inevitably says things like, “Get away from me with your eyes,” and, “I have a theory that you can brew wine from dead flies,” and, “Don’t bum your dad for an orange!”—has offered to show me around England during my vacation, which I may do for a week, before heading home.
I’ll have pen and pad at the ready.
My Friend Ken: Micro-Biographies Of Genuine Imitation Truth So, I’ve known Ken since 3rd grade. The older you get, the more important it is to know people who knew you in 3rd grade. Ken made a call for short, humorous bios, to be used while he seeks funding and support and personnel for an independent film he’s piecing together.
I offered the following smorgasbord for him to choose from. I have known Ken for decades and can say that each of these bios is 100% true—they are so true, in point of fact, that each is more true than the last (no matter which order you read them in).
Bio 1 Ken Gallivan was sent back in time to stop Judgement Day—the day hyper-evolved pancakes attain self-awareness and turn on their masters. He can only do this by making an independent movie. Please, help Ken help you to prevent the Pancake Apocalypse from ever occurring.
Bio 2 Ken Gallivan makes independent films by day, but by night, he fights crime as the Incredible Carlos. His film career funds his gadgets and the preternatural mustache he can only reveal when he sheds his every day disguise—the very mustache that is the line between harmonious order and heinous, criminal anarchy. Please support Ken’s film career. The life you save could be your own. Bio 3 If you watch just one film made by a dude named Ken Gallivan, this year, make it this one.
Bio 4 Ken Gallivan was raised by wolves. Please support this film.
Bio 5 Ken Gallivan was created by top Scandinavian geneticists in a secret lab under a mile of ice in Antarctica, in a secret project known only as Black Cabbage. He was designed, honed, and perfected to do only two things: make independent films…and slaughter kittens. Pleas support his film career.
Bio 6 Ken Gallivan is a prime number. Please support this film.
Bio 7 Ken Gallivan is a Time Lord. If he is not able to complete this film, he will be unable to acquire the parts to fix his TARDIS and travel to the past to impregnate your mother, and then you will cease to exist.
Bio 8 Once upon a time, Ken Galivan befriended a savage lion by removing a thorn from the beast’s paw. And if you do not support this film, that lion will fucking eat you.
Bio 9 Ken Galivan is handsome and has a rapist’s wit. Please support this film.
Bio 10 Ken Gallivan is the name of Joy in the hearts and minds of all children. His passing brings peace and the gentle scent of cinnamon. The bears of the north woods call him “forever friend” in their ancient tongue. And though the crocodile lords of the south hate him, dammit, they respect him. Please support this film.
Bio 11 In the time it took you to give blood today, you could have seen Ken Gallivan’s movie. Twice.
I played video games in a graveyard, had a near hallucinatory experience with the Fraggle Rocks, saw the monolith on the big screen, and found fossils in the woods.
But enough cryptic foreplay…let’s get to it!
Goblin Markets, Fraggle Rocks, Strange Days
Several Saturdays ago, I rolled out of bed, at noon, stumbled into some clothes, and made the walk to grab a coffee at the corner shop. I found the main road closed and full of people in a sort of Norwegian sidewalk market fest. I decided to explore it for a few hours.
Sometimes getting a coffee can be an adventure.
Lots of little shops. Some cool paintings sold on the sidewalk. Various yummy smells. Various fishy smells. A large area of sidewalk was taken over by a radio station doing a promotion. They had this big ramp, covered in snow, with various kids doing ski and snowboard tricks, on the warm, sunny day. I didn’t understand what was said, but it looked fun. The boarders/skiers ranged in age, up to late teens, but the one who rocked the best tricks, and with the most confidence, was the youngest looking, a little girl. She was like the snowboarding version of Hit Girl.
That night, I went into the Funcom office (I go to work to play my video games) to play Conan with some folks from the US. With the time difference, I didn’t get out of there until 3 a.m. And what do my bleary peepers spy when I get to the street?
A bus. Not a normal bus. This bus is rocking. And there are weird lights and mist coming out of it. And loud, ribcage-rattling dance music is pulsing forth from it. In fact, it looks like there is a night club in a pocket dimension, within the bus, full of people dancing. And, as my eyes adjust, I see what it is painted along the whole outer body…scenes depicting the Fraggle Rocks.
Before I could pinch myself, the bus drove off into the Norwegian night.
And where is the magical Fraggle bus now? ‘tis a mystery…***
Womb Breach Day
The end of April saw me turn 31. This means I am just old enough to play a high school kid in Hollywood.
The Monolith and the Trilobites
So this one time, a great-uncle of mine found this bone, and smashed this other dude in the head for messing around at his waterhole…and the rest is prehistory…
Through some cats at work, I found the movie theatre that film geeks go to here in Oslo. I have since watched 2001: A Space Odyssey and Lawrence of Arabia, and Chinatown, on the big screen, in 70mm. Loud sound too. I could feel my hair flying back at the height of the 2001 theme.
All in all, I think I could have beaten HAL. Back in the early-mid 90s, I had a face-off with an artificial intelligence by the name of Dr. Sbaitso. Let’s just say…I’m the one still standing.
A few Sundays ago, I went with Oliver, another workmate from Funcom, out fossil hunting. Based on the memory of a hand drawn map that he saw on a WEBSITE, we took a train and hour+ out of the city, then walked for about four miles, looking for some rocks that didn’t look much different than the surrounding miles of rocks, but contained fossils. My hopes weren’t too high, but it was nice scenery. And yet…WE FOUND ‘EM!
We didn’t just find a fossil, but lots and lots of fossils, mostly trilobites (which are arthropods, not a rejected Clive Barker movie monster). One of the fossils now sits on my desk.
Also, a raven (not a city crow…but a real raven) circled above us and croaked a few times.
I am all that is paleontologist!!!
We also saw this:
That’s right! It’s the Aass Brewery. When you taste that distinct, robust, full-bodied flavor…you know you’re in Aass country.
It’s All About Getting the ExP
Do you think anyone will notice that, on my LinkedIn resume, I list one of my past jobs as Infamous International Jewel Thief?
Age of Conan: Rise of the Godslayer The MMO computer game expansion I’ve been writing on for the last 10 months came out about two weeks ago.
There was a party–my first game launch party. There was much libation. I ended up at various places, and then a long walk home in the early AM (with detailed instructions on where not to walk).
Oslo, May 17th May 17th is the big national holiday here in Oslo, and I went out and experienced just how many people can fill these city streets. Yikes. Many people were in traditional garb and it was rather interesting. I would have preferred viking helmets and mead-filled skulls, but then, who wouldn’t?
The Pentagon
Saturday I tried to make a trip out to the Comic Book Library here in Oslo…but it was closed for the holiday weekend. Looking about and finding myself in a foreign city (this happens every few hours, think Momento, only I don’t have any nifty tattoos for help) I decided to explore. I eventually stepped into a shop with army surplus, roman helms, tommy gun air rifles, a rubber alien set up in an alien autopsy scene, swords n’ knives, and yes, a live tarantula.
This was convenient as it was exactly the store I was looking for.
Some Tweeted Thoughts and Meditations Over the Last Few Weeks
*No, that is not a tear in my wrinkled shirt; it’s my ragged scarecrow chic.
*When life hands me lemons, I make poorly executed metaphors.
*Hate ironing. If you don’t have any wrinkles, rumples, or patches, how do you even know you’ve lived?
*Found out I’ll be a bridesmaid. Strange days. Never know what I’ll be doing or on what continent anymore. Does this make me a bridesman?
*I’m sometimes tempted to write under the name Jack Fatuus…or Haph Hazard…or Penethorne Scrivensworth…or Icky Knock (short for Ichabod).
Howzabout a Moment of Zen?
Watch this. You really should. I wouldn’t lie. Not to you.
[***Note: I have since learned the reason for the Fraggle bus, but don’t want to spoil the mystery for you, just yet.]
So today is Mothers Day. I should talk about my Mom, but a picture is worth a thousand words, so this might save you about five minutes of reading right off the bat. My first literary criticism:
Me n’ Mom. And that’s pretty much been the state of our relationship ever since. Not even one moment of letdown or existential angst.
Really.
Unbelievable, right?
You think I’m not being candid and opening my soul, and showing you the jagged bits that lie just past the mask of small talk–some deeply buried bit of motherly disappointment. That’s what you’re thinking.
That’s what my mother has done to me. Between this lack of a tragic past and no suitable vice to speak of, my writing’s street cred is severely damaged. So thanks a lot, Mom! I can barely wear my dark clothing with a straight face. Can’t even pen a proper suicide-cry-for-help poem.
Was it too much to ask to have you let me down just one time? One time! Could you not find it in your heart to, just once, callously put your needs before mine–to not be there just one of the times I was sick or sad? Couldn’t you have, on occasion, barraged me with pessimism, plant even a single seed of doubt in my choices, lowered my expectations in myself just to be realistic and play it safe, or at the very, very least, take a little ambient anger out on me?
No?
Human beings are allowed lapses, moments of weakness, to occasionally hurt the ones they love. It happens all the time! But you…never. Seriously. You’re freaking ridiculous. If I wrote you as a character, I’d have to add a dark spot just so people would believe it—book reviewers would be like, “This mother character is a pleasant, if naive, notion…but could never happen in the real world.”
I mean, part of growing up is realizing your elders have flaws—and then being shocked by that—and then being scared by that—and then resenting that—and finally coming full circle and accepting that, and them, on a deepening level of understanding. But you! You just bat your eyes at that whole paradigm and transcend human frailty by maintaining a nigh divine, Platonic ideal of maternal perfection.
This one time, in a grad school writing class, I’m sitting at the table, comparing story notes, when the guy next to me shares some of the cathartic emotions he deals with, when writing, and tells us all about how his parents once OK’d an antidepressant medication that turned him into a numb robot, and they couldn’t be bothered to care enough to get it switched, so he lost an entire year of is impressionable, young life in a drug-clouded, emotionally-retarded haze, and he’s never been able to fully forgive them for that.
And what did I have to say?
“Uh…this one time…I skinned my knee.”
“And?”
“It hurt…”
“And?”
“I was scared…”
“And?”
“My Mom made me feel better, and loved, and centered, and confident in the knowledge that I was special and important for years and years to come.”
It was sooooooo embarrassing!
The closest thing I have to parental angst was growing up with the knowledge that all my friends thought of you as the “hot mom”.
Every single time I put pen to paper and delve into even the slightest bit of dark prose, I can feel the eyes of the world on me–whispering, smirking, saying, “What business does he have writing this?”
This is the hell that is my life.
So thanks again, Mom. Thanks for ruining me with happiness.
So, I’m apparently a soulless whore trying to dupe people into buying my book…
Odd online encounter yesterday.
Chatted with a stranger. Hellos exchanged, she asked me what I was doing all the way out in Oslo and how I planned on promoting my writing (mentioned in my profile)—these are easy segues into conversation for me, and I was flattered by the interest. Then, not even a minute into the chat, things got weird…
Ambiguous phrases, things about lines one shouldn’t cross, selling one’s soul, lonely people on the internet—it all seemed out of context (especially 40 seconds into a conversation). I thought maybe she was making some sweeping commentary on the internet culture, so I gave the benefit of the doubt and tried to follow along.
Then a suspicion scuttled up my neck, that she was accusing me of something.
“Please don’t do this.”
I looked around, to make sure I hadn’t somehow sat at someone else’s computer. I looked in the mirror, to make sure I hadn’t inadvertently metamorphosed into someone else when I wasn’t paying attention.
I said that, as far as I know, I had not sold my soul, and asked what it was she thought I was doing. But this went back and forth, going nowhere—the sort of conversation when someone accuses someone of something, but is angered further when asked what this is. Conversations like:
“There are some things you just don’t do.”
“Uh…do what?”
“You know perfectly well.”
“Let’s pretend, for a second that I don’t, and just say it.”
“Don’t deny it”
“Deny what?”
And so on.
Eventually, I was able to drag it out. Pasting the mess together in a semi-lucid order, it goes as follows:
1. My profile seemed predominately about my writing.
2. The only reason I had an online presence was to seduce lonely souls into buying my book.
3. I’d crossed a line that shouldn’t be crossed, sold my soul, become a literary whore.
4. Books should succeed on their own merit.
I was stunned…nay, let’s say flabbergasted (because I like that word). It was such naked hate and disdain for another person, dressed up as a plea: please don’t sell your soul, please don’t be a whore, please have some self-esteem.
Mind you, this doesn’t even classify high enough on the reason spectrum to be labeled a misinterpretation. There was no interpretation. This all occurred within two minutes of saying, “Hello.”
It seemed she was determined to have a dramatic confrontation with me…but she was the only one who received the script.
We can break these points down to their failing DNA, broken-helix strands (and I think I will), but let’s first take a moment to regard the most important fact:
I DO NOT HAVE A BOOK TO SELL.
I don’t.
I do have an upcoming novel that has been in drafts and on hiatus for the last 3+ years, but I have no links that lead a person to any place that involves spending money (let alone money that comes back to me).
But denying her accusations (and providing arguments about why they did not make sense) only infuriated her further and further convinced her of my guilt. Why would someone deny evil doings, if they’re not an evil doer?
No Proof is the Good Proof & Other Fallacies
So I said:
I DO NOT HAVE A BOOK TO SELL.
Hmmm, she pondered, and…aha! She pointed out that I had links to my Myspace and various blogs. To her Sherlockian credit, these facts are very true. They are so true, in point of fact, that they are true for the vast majority of the internet world. People on social sites tend to offer links or user names to other places that a person can interface with them (regardless of their occupation). Perhaps the internet is still an odd device to her and she assumes a link means it must lead to penis enlarging products. But, again, my links don’t lead to anything to sell….and how does that go again, kids?
I DO NOT HAVE A BOOK TO SELL.
But there was no arguing these points with her. I don’t have the transcript, but she typed something to the effect of:
“Honey, I’m X years your senior. You can’t pull one over on me.”
Alright. That certainly plays to the the theme of wisdom to the elders, and in this youth obsessed world, I often agree. But while years tend to build up wisdom in a person, that wisdom is relative, and the scales change from individual to individual.
In this case, let’s break down the logical fallacy she implies:
I am older than you, therefore, my accusations against you must be true.
or
So long as I make accusations against someone younger, they will be true.
Haven’t we all been in this situation…
“You’re a shape-shifting, reptilian alien come to feast on my adrenal gland.”
“Uh…no. I’m not.”
“Honey, I have seen sixteen more winters than you. I think I’m right.”
If all your years have done is make you comfortable in your judgment, to the point that you no longer question your assumptions (or even investigate them in a coherent manner), then they have not sharpened that judgment.
Some people think they are extra clever, shrewd, or insightful if they utter phrases like, “Yeah, right,” or “Give me a break,” a lot. It’s so easy to accuse and run…and then live under the assumption that your intuition is infallible (because reality has never had to test it).
Even if I had books to sell, and I mentioned them, how does that imply that it’s the sole reason I’m socializing on the net? Why can’t a person be there to socialize, but also just happen to be a writer by profession? Certainly it’s possible a stranger’s only interest is to sell you a book…but how would you know that off the bat? Shouldn’t you talk a bit and observe this person to gauge their character?
But there are those who don’t actually want to put in that effort. People are so desperate to believe they have strong intuition. Every. Single. Person. “Good judge of character” is one of the most common, self-proclaimed traits. It’s right up there with “open-minded” and “good sense of humor”.
Personally, I think it is very telling that she could not conceive of a scenario in which a stranger would want to talk to her without first having some nefarious purpose. But then…perhaps I just want to believe I have deep intuition and sharp eyes.
My Nefarious Purpose
And just why do I blog and lurk about the net?
I’ve written blogs (on LiveJournal, Myspace, etc.) for almost 8 years. It’s a habit I enjoy. But what is the insidious original purpose of my blog? You’ll have to go back to the first post to find out…
MY FIRST BLOG
There you have it. The start of grad school and what I had for lunch. Pretty sinister stuff.
And why else would I blog and twitter and such? Let us count the ways:
-keep in touch with loved ones far away and let them know what I’m up to (makes living on another continent easier)
-express some tough feelings when I’m far away (like when my GRANDPA DIED)
-occasionally flirt (I have no medical degree but am convinced flirtation keeps the heart palpitating)
-meet strangers for interesting conversations
-meet strangers to learn a joke I’ve never heard
-speak with other artists of other discplines (useful if you have interests in collaborative efforts like comic books and movies)
-experience view points from places I’ve never been
-get in touch with folks in new places I am going to (like Norway)
-naked curiosity
-advise and shop talk from other writers
This is just to name a few. And yes. I will mention things I’m working on, dammit. I’m proud of what successes and mistakes I can eek out from the long night of self-doubt. I’ll strut it a bit, when I can, and tell Mom and Dad to post it on the old refrigerator.
Greed Is Not the Dwarf of the Seven Deadlies Hiding Under My Bed
This lady barked at the wrong flashlight. Greed has never been my bag. I don’t mean to say my virtue is beyond reproach, but Greed implies a more practical mindset than I posses. Lust and Sloth always came easier to me and they are the ones I have to watch out for.
What does the Joker say?
“I’m just a dog chasing cars. I wouldn’t know what to do with one if I caught it.”
I caught one once and ended up in Oslo, and I’m still disoriented, tongue hanging out of my mouth.
No, if sales and fame were my prime motivator, I would not be writing fiction. I would be pumping out self-help guides and inventing religions for celebrities to follow. Perhaps, in my declining years, I will.
The Myth of the Sell-Out
I could stop there, but in her short rant, she implied that an author promoting their work was somehow an act of soulless prostitution. There exists a certain myth in the mass minds, even a subconscious predisposition to feel that an artist passing their hats around or making a living is somehow despicable, or at least, less than genuine to their art.
This is presumptuous bullshit.
It is a myth.
It doesn’t even make much sense and quickly dies under the light. Really this is a topic that belongs in its own blog post, but I feel it insults a number of friends and acquaintances of mine, who do share their wares, and who are not prostitutes and indeed have souls (great big bright ones full of swimming koi speaking enlightening riddles).
OK, break it down to brass tacks–this is how art/entertainment works: it does not fully exist until it has an audience to perceive it—it is the act of communication—the act of telling others about something and spreading it. THAT’S HOW IT WORKS! This is not an ambiguous concept.
What did she say?
“A book should succeed on its own merits.”
Sounds good…but that doesn’t actually happen until someone reads it. Did I just have to explain that? Really? A book of merit doesn’t magically appear on someone’s shelf.
I guess she must think that the highest virtue a writer can aspire to, is to write a book without telling anyone about it, then locking it away in a dark safe, and let it sit there and succeed on its own merit…and then lying about their occupation to others, or at least refusing to say.
“What do you do for a living?”
“Can’t tell you…I don’t want to be a soulless whore.”
Does this smell at all like insanity?
And how come artists and entertainers exist in the only profession plagued by this myth and prejudice? No one else is ever made to feel bad for earning a living. If someone on Facebook mentions that they are a plumber in their profile, they don’t get told:
“Oh…so you’re just trying to get me to buy your plumbing expertise. You sell out! What happened to you? You sold your soul and your self-esteem to the machine. It used to be about the pipes, man! I bet you don’t even feel any passion when you pick up a plunger anymore. You dirty pipe-whore.”
Of course, if anyone is a plumber, and this has happened, tell me and I will share your pain. Cheers.
Do you know what horrible thing happens when an artist makes a living? They have more time to work on, explore, and hone their art.
Sinister!
All of this, of course, only has passing relevance to my particular encounter because, again:
I HAVE NO BOOK TO SELL.
The Big Fat Ending
That’s all.
I probably shouldn’t have acknowledged this bit of crazy with even this much typing…but it just stuck in my craw for some reason. Maybe it was because I was suffering a hangover yesterday and extra sensitive to bad vibes directed at me. That rouses the harsh-grinning, sardonic side of me to rise up and try and protect the little child within (who is now injured and crying on his blanky, thank you very much).
Rather than say anymore, I’ll just sum up that strange, short encounter with this video:
Organizing old files, I came across a vivid nightmare I had during my first month in Norway. It flung me out of bed and, half asleep, not looking at the screen, I typed it out as fast as I could, as much as I could, before it left my head. I do not normally have nightmares, beyond some good natured zombie slaying. Eleven months later, it reads like something a stranger wrote…
*****
I wake up. Nightmare. Played out like a fully illustrated horror story. Maybe a slight detour through Hell, but it never says so straight out.
*****
You start out on a lonely stretch of road. Snow. Fields. A few trees. Car breaks down. You walk. Barbed wire. Desolate. Farmhouse (or something) ahead.
You walk along the road. You stray away from the road.
*****
There is a family. Maybe two families. Maybe a vacationing family and some friends. Their car is broken down. Snow. It’s cold. Very cold. Dangerous cold. Everyone’s getting to that dangerous place — lie down and sleep forever. For some reason, they’ve given up on knocking on the doors of the building (it’s a farmhouse, or something, a set of buildings that appear boarded up and abandoned).
There is no more warmth in the car.
The adults dig out the snow outside, a little ridge of shelter, and start putting the children there for safety, packing them in like little bags in a freezer. But the white powder falls over their faces. Everyone is about ready to sleep. Why have they given up? Maybe it was a car accident and everyone is disoriented. Maybe there is some frozen blood.
At the last second, a ray of light. Someone from in the building opens it up. Not the people that live there. No one lives there. No one is from there.
But lots of other people seem stuck here too. It’s some kind of abandoned, shutdown vacation resort.
*****
Inside.
Lots of people. Lots of stories on how they got here. Yet you don’t recall seeing any other broke- down cars.
Lots of stories. Lots of paths that lead here.
No clocks. But you feel there is some kind of countdown you don’t want to be on the other side of. But you’re curious.
People mill about, weathering the storm in the warmth inside. Food and booze have been found. Lots of stories…
Janet has gotten to know Hank. She likes his wit. She mentions getting drinks and he reluctantly says he’s an alcoholic. Says he’d feel weird, feel like some dirty failure if he went and made a drink for himself. Janet thinks that, given the circumstances, he deserves a little libation and suggests that she get one, and that he take a sip from her’s…that way he’s not some pathetic failure grasping at discovered booze, but maybe…a well to do gentleman at an upscale party, taking a drink from a fine woman.
She asks him what she’ll be having.
She mixes the drink. She brings it back. He takes it, deftly, from behind her and says thanks. She sips the spare she prepared for herself. She thinks she is about two drinks away from sleeping with Hank.
Lots of people here. Lots of stories.
Lots of paths that lead here. There are no clocks but there is a countdown.
*****
There are pleasure sounds, in the night, in the building.
There are also what might be construed as muffled screams. Struggle…but not much. Lots of stories here. Lots of paths.
Somehow, no matter where each begins, it ends bad. It comes down in waves. In synchronized patterns. The countdown is done.
Flashes of images. Smiles. Blood. Hair. Leaking fluid from an eye. Whispers. Chewing. Ragged nails, dark and dripping in the moonlight. Hair mostly covering mad eyes and you pray you don’t see them fully.
*****
You walk the grounds outside the building. Not very cold, not much snow now. Is that strange?
Winding paths. Other, smaller structures around the main building. Tool sheds and utility buildings.
Lots of paths and fields and a few trees and groves and, in the distance, the abandoned road. Stories out here too. People taking walks. You walk behind someone.
They seem to be taking an odd course. Maybe had too much to drink.
There are other stories here, and they’ve all turned bad on the vine.
There is a couple sitting on a stump. Their faces are sewn together. Maybe they scream or maybe they moan — hard to tell in the muffle.
A mother peels the last of the skin off her sun’s skull and says, “There, was that so bad?”
A little girl rides her daddy’s shoulders. She gnaws at the ragged hole in his hard skull, crams in little fingers and tears out another glistening chunk from inside and chews it like cotton candy. “No this way, daddy!” she says, imperiously pointing. He grunts something, not quite able to form the words and he lurches in that direction, and he has vacant, idiot eyes.
All the stories turned bad.
You don’t want to see them.
But you are curious, and you have so many questions.
You overtake the man you’ve been walking behind. You know you shouldn’t. You don’t want to see. But you do. His ocular cavities are empty, blood-streaming down his face. On his thumbs and fingers, the gore and jelly tell the story.
You walk on.
*****
Where do all these people come from?
*****
A car drives in random directions, tires spinning, fish-tailing, sliding about the fields. It is well away from the road.
You catch images inside. Horrible. Each hammers the heart.
Bad things in each glimpse — glimpses of gore and mutilation and messy stitches and cuts and body parts and complete abomination.
The kids don’t say, “Are we there yet?”. They stopped screaming some time ago. The father’s foot and arms are all that seem to work still. His eyes failed him a while back. The eyes from his family, sewn or stuck to various places on his body don’t seem to help either. The children are sewn together in one lump, for more economy of space.
The car keeps spinning and roaring along the fields. No telling when it will stop.
Other bad stories. Where did these people come from? You feel you ought to know.
*****
Time passes. Skip to the end.
*****
You walk along the side of the building. You’ve made it through the madhouse. By now there is no real snow and only a little chill. You walk along a path that winds away from the building and its complex and the perpetual stories of the people you are pretty sure will never leave. You try not to fall into those pitfalls — to ignore the siren call of personal oblivions.
You walk along a path better than that. It winds away.
You walk with a woman, good looking, raven hair, large eyes full of sensible wisdom, in sensible boots for hiking the terrain. She has an inquisitive smirk you like.
The path winds away from the abandoned complex and then, in the distance, you can see the road. And for a while, the path parallels the road. You look ahead, and see the path eventually winds away, into some grove of skeleton trees and hills and off into a distance you cannot see.
“You could walk with me for a while,” says the woman. “This leads to more. You can find out more.”
Could you? Better than the sad stories behind you, and proud in your superiority, you could find out more. You are so curious. Maybe there are answers on that path. Maybe all the secrets, all the answers, all the why’s to the surreal stories and souls behind you, explicit answers about the abandoned tourist complex. So curious…curious…curiosity…
“There’s just one thing…” says the raven-haired woman.
You feel the moment coming. You’ve been duped. Your stomach drops and you feel the horrid reveal coming. Just in time. You don’t whip your head away in any obvious manner (that would break some kind of rule you dare not break), you just look forward and off to the right a little, because you’re still curious, still able to see out of the periphery of your left vision, able to see all the cuts and gashes in her face, the wounds that no longer bleed, the angry fish hooks…and other things you can’t quite make out.
“…you’d have to stay with me forever.”
You don’t want to know the secrets. You don’t want to go down that curve. You realize curiosity is a trap too. Curiosity is a path.
You don’t run. You don’t even abruptly change course. You do not want to offend. You do not want to draw any attention to yourself. You do not even speak or respond to the question. You slowly curve away from the path — the step-crunch of the field — and slowly curve away from the woman and her path and you never look back, only straight ahead, as quietly and as invisible as you can.
You crunch across the field and back to the road. You walk along the road again. You stay to the road. You may have a while to walk.
Scythed wheat sighs and gallows giggles Laughing-shriek echoes and phantom limb tickles Cold stone embraces and unanswered I-love-you’s Grave soil ‘tween toes and unsaid goodbyes Harvest moon sobs and stillborn lullabies Cold-fogged breath and waterlogged lungs Heart murmur discords and postmortem hiccups Snicker-snap skulls and serrated caresses Crow beak kisses and black feather blankets
A SCRIVENER’S PRAYER
Joshua Alan Doetsch 