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Creo que por fin he reorganizado mi trabajo para tener tiempo para escribir y leer más (mi lista de pendientes lo agradece). He revisado mis apuntes de cuentos y relatos largos inconclusos para ir cerrando algunos y otros para continuarlos (no son muchos, creo que está controlado). Supongo que nos veremos más seguido. #retomando

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Midnight Mass - excerpt from the original 2010 novel

A few people have asked about Midnight Mass back when it was a novel. That was my first stab at telling the story of Crockett Island back in 2010. I made it a ways into the book before pivoting and trying to write it as a script, and then broke it again as a series in 2014, more half a decade before we'd finally start making it for Netflix.

I dug up the old, unfinished manuscript from 2010 (some day I may try to finish it). It's got some spelling and grammatical errors, but I was surprised to see that some of the early scenes made it all the way to the screen relatively unaltered. Here's a little taste of what those pages looked like, and how at least one scene arrived in the series a decade later almost entirely unchanged...

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You forgot to mention what happens with Julia Jane in season 2 of the midnight club!!! Please I will die of cliffhanger 😭.

We hadn't worked out exactly what to do with her - Samantha and I were just starting to have our conversations about where to take Julia when Netflix cancelled the show. I imagine that we would have dealt with her returning cancer, and there's a very good chance Julia wouldn't have lived through the second season. We had wanted there to be one last moment between Julia and Ilonka, and Dr. Stanton (we probably would have used this to help bring Stanton's backstory to the foreground), and then Julia would have had to accept her prognosis.

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The Midnight Club - Season Two

I'm very disappointed that Netflix has decided not to pursue a second season of THE MIDNIGHT CLUB.

My biggest disappointment is that we left so many story threads open, holding them back for the hypothetical second season, which is always a gamble.

So I'm writing this blog as our official second season, so you can know what might have been, learn the fates of your favorite characters, and know the answers to those dangling story threads from the first season.

So for those of you who want to know what we were planning to do, here's a look at what would have been season 2!

AMESH Season 2 would open with Amesh, his glioblastoma advancing quickly. He would tell the first story of the season, but would be struggling to make it through. We'd focus on his love story with Natsuki for those first few episodes as it becomes clear that Amesh's death is imminent.

Meanwhile, Ilonka is trying to reconcile how she was fooled by Julia Jayne, all while falling further in love with Kevin, and she realizes he may be fading faster than he lets on.

Ilonka begins a serialized story in an effort to encourage him to "stay alive a little longer," like he did in season one. And the story she tells is... REMEMBER ME.

This was the thing I was most excited about for this season.

REMEMBER ME is one of my all-time favorite Pike books - it tells the story of a teenage girl who is pushed off a balcony, and awakens as a ghost. She has to navigate being a spirit while trying to solve her own murder. We would have stretched this story out over 5 episodes. We were going to use it as a vehicle for Ilonka to try to come to terms with the fact that she is going to die, and to begin to trying to wrap her head around being a ghost... but this is the coolest part... the lead character of Ilonka's story wouldn't be played by Ilonka. She'd be played by...

Anya.

Because this is how we live on, isn't it? In the minds of those we leave behind. And Ilonka would use REMEMBER ME as a way to imagine her dear friend Anya, waking up as a ghost, navigating the afterlife. And this sets up one of the best mechanisms of the show - even if a character dies, as long as they're remembered by members of the club, they live on in their stories.

As the story starts to pick up steam, though, the group will have to deal with the death of Amesh, which he greets with grace and bravery.

In his final moments, he sees someone in his room - the Janitor from the first season, as played by Robert Longstreet, who says comforting things to Amesh even though he can't respond.

In his final, final moments, the SHADOW descends upon Amesh, and he is engulfed into it, which reinforces the idea that the Shadow is DEATH...

With Amesh's death comes something that upends the entire thing: a NEW PATIENT. We didn't work out too much about who this would be, but it would be a new roommate for Ilonka. Someone taking Anya's old bed. Ilonka would find herself being initially cold to her - just as Anya was when Ilonka arrived. Even feeling like this new girl shouldn't necessarily be ushered into the Club. But of course they would develop a beautiful friendship over the course of the season. The new girl joins the club, where something else exciting is happening - Cheri is telling a story. We hadn't decided which one, but I think it might have been MONSTER.

Natsuki would be the next to die, which would be heartbreaking. And again, she would talk to the janitor just before it happened... and again, the Shadow would come in the final moments.

For Spence, though, things would take a different turn.

The advancements in HIV treatment in the late 90's would come into play, and we'd see his prognosis change. The HIV cocktail came out in Dec 1995, and we really wanted to explore that.

Spence would ride the swell of antiviral advancements, and by the end of the season, he'd no longer be classified as terminal. In the finale of season 2, Spence would leave Brightcliffe just like Sandra did in Season 1, heading off to manage his disease and live the rest of his life.

But onto the BIG MYSTERIES of the season one... here are some answers: What is up with Dr. Stanton's tattoo and bald head? Well, a few things. First, Dr. Stanton is actually the daughter of the original Paragon cult leader, Aceso. Her nickname was Athena, she wrote the Paragon journal that Ilonka found in S1. She turned on her mother and helped the kids escape, but because she was part of the cult in her teenage years, she had the tattoo.

It was her initials that Ilonka found carved into the tree in season 1 (her maiden name was Georgina Ballard, hence the G.B. that Ilonka finds carved in the tree).

She hated what her mother became, and the atrocities of the cult. She reclaimed the property after her mom was gone, and wanted to change it into a place that celebrated life. She was trying to undo her mother's legacy and leave something behind that was beautiful. She is wearing a wig at the end of S1 not because of a sinister reason, but because she is undergoing chemo. Dr. Stanton has cancer. Having helped so many people deal with disease, she now has to deal with it herself.

Her treatment would be successful, and she'd go into remission, but having to face that - while caring for the terminal kids at Brightcliffe - was going to be a very introspective arc for Stanton.

What about the Living Shadow? It's Death, right? Well... no.

At the end of the season, Kevin will die... followed shortly by Ilonka. And as she is dying, two things will happen. First, she'll find herself talking to the Janitor, played by Robert Longstreet... and she'll make a discovery.

HE is Death. And nothing to be afraid of. It turns out no one else ever saw this character. Stanton has a cleaning service, and the Nurse practitioners make up the rooms - the only people who ever saw this mysterious Janitor were the patients. He is Death, and offers them kind words before they die. Then what was the Shadow?

This is an idea we take directly from the book REMEMBER ME, and we'll see it play out in the final moments of Ilona's final tale. In Pike's book, Shari is pursued by a dark entity called The Shadow. When it finally catches her, though, it turns out it is not a bad thing at all.

The Shadow is THEMSELVES. It's the Unknown. As it engulfs someone, in the last moment of their life, it takes them through a place of understanding and catharsis, preparing them for the next step.

THIS is what happened to Anya in S1 when the Shadow finally reached her - that's why she fantasized a life beyond Brightcliffe, which ultimately let her find acceptance of her death. It looks different for everybody, depending on their mind-set - because it is simply an extension of themselves.

The Shadow is just the final catharsis, a return to our original form - it is a moment of true understanding, and once we experience it, we move on to the next place.

We see the Shadow in full effect when it finally comes for Kevin. KEVIN DIES with Ilonka at his side, and it leads to the biggest reveal of the season:

Who were the Mirror Man and the Cataract Woman?

They were Stanley Oscar Freelan and his wife, who built Brightcliffe (fun trivia, he is named after the real-life Freelan Oscar Stanley, who built my favorite hotel in America - the Stanley Hotel. The Stanley is also the inspiration for THE SHINING!).

But more than that... there's a reason that Ilonka only sees Stanley in the mirror, and sees the Cataract Woman whenever she looked at Kevin. This is something else we took from Pike's original book... these aren't ghosts, but glimpses of PAST LIVES.

Ilonka WAS Stanley Oscar Freelan, and Kevin WAS his wife. They've lived many lives this way, and are true SOUL MATES - they always find each other, and they always fall in love. In this life, they knew it would be a short one, so they agreed to find each other in the house they built. They've been "remembering" who they are, and glimpsing their former selves in reflections, and sometimes when they look at each other. This is also why Ilonka's very first words to Kevin in S1 were "Do I know you?" and why Kevin thought she was familiar as well. They are two souls who always find each other, again and again.

The story is this: Stanley was dying, and built this cliffside home hoping that the seaside air would help him. It did, and he far outlived his prognosis (this is also true of the real-life Freelan Stanley). However, his wife began to succumb to dementia.

She would wander the halls, looking for him ("Darling!") and would even forget to feed herself ("I'm starving...") and she eventually refused to leave the basement. Heartbroken for her, Stanley painted the walls to resemble the woodland view, and the ceiling to resemble the night sky, so that it would be a little more beautiful for her.

He also painted a labyrinth on the floor, which was a technique used to try to curb the effects of dementia. She'd walk the pattern of the maze and it was believed it could help her cognition. Eventually, she developed frightening cataracts, but Stanley loved her through it all.

They were soul mates.

So while they seemed scary in season 1, that was just how Ilonka and Kevin's mind were trying to remember their pasts. We even had their faces distorting in ways consistent with how memories degrade over time. When the Shadow comes for Ilonka, and gives her this understanding - this "remembering" - she realizes she has nothing to fear. She and Kevin will shed these personas and be reborn, and have the joy of finding each other another way. The Shadow comes for her, Death takes her gently, and Ilonka goes off with Kevin back into the cosmos, ready for their next incarnation. The series would end with Cheri telling this story to a whole new table of patients, including our new series leads. Most of our original cast now would exist as stories, a story told to the next "class" of storytellers at the table, all of whom we will have met by the end of the season. A story called "The Midnight Club."

Well, that's it... that was what we had in mind. It's a shame we won't get to make it, but it would be a bigger shame if you guys simply had to live with the unanswered questions and the cliffhanger ending. I loved making this show, and I am so proud of the cast and crew. Particularly our cast, who attacked this story with incredible spirit and bravery each and every day.

But for now, we'll put the fire out, and leave the library dark and quiet. To those before, and to those after. To us now, and to those beyond.

Seen or unseen, here but not here.

I'll always be grateful that I got to be part of this Club.

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Hoy hace 1 años que llegué a Tumblr. 🥳

Parece menos porque poco lo he usado. Y como si fuera promesa de año nuevo: Desde ahora sí que lo ocuparé más seguido... 😉😁

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Las cinco fases del dolor estaban en «Hill's House» y también en «The haunting of Bly Manor» (ambas en Netflix).

THE GHOSTS OF BLY + FIVE STAGES OF GRIEF

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is there anything you can tell us about the man from hush? i find him so unsettling and i often think about his backstory, i'd be really interested to know anything you'd imagined about him or his life

We did indeed have a backstory for him, but I believe very much that he is scarier the less of it you know. John Gallagher Jr. and I talked a lot about it (he needed to know to build the character), but I think it's best left unsaid. The movie works better when you know only as much as Maddie does.

That said, we did include some clues. Some of it is in his language, an some of it is in the details of his wardrobe and weapons.

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Al morir nos transformamos en historias...

THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE | 1.02 “Open Casket” THE MIDNIGHT CLUB | 1.01 “The Final Chapter

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Hi mike!!!

Quick question! What is your favorite set out of all 4 of your shows on Netflix? I think they are the most amazing sets I’ve seen!

All of Crockett Island. We built every single structure you see in the show from scratch, and it still takes my breath away.

If you want a comprehensive look at how we did it all, I highly recommend Abbie Bernstein's book MIDNIGHT MASS: THE ART OF HORROR. It goes very in-depth into the sets and the production design.

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Vader Down #1 (2016) textless variant cover by Katie Cook

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hi mike, saw someone say your ask box was open and i came running! have you ever had any ideas as to how the crain family would be getting on now a few years later/what they're doing? it's always in the back of my mind wondering if creators also wonder about those sort of things themselves once their project has ended. thanks so much & hope you have a great day!

I do think about that. Quite a lot, actually.

The Crains took on lives of their own for me. I'd never written long form before, so it was the first time I lived with the sam characters for that long, and for such extended arcs. Here's where I think they are, a few years later:

Shirley: I think that Shirley and her husband overcame her disclosure of infidelity. She'd been closed off for so long, after the series ended I think she found some peace in her life and opened herself up to her marriage. I think she also began to find kindness again. They ran the funeral home together, but Shirley found purpose in helping people handle grief and loss with empathy and kindness. Her oldest would be just about ready to start college now, and I think that would have her looking back and realizing that she always remembered her childhood as seemingly endless... but now she sees just how fast it truly goes by.

Luke: Luke stayed sober. He's six years into it now, and it's gone so well that he's also become a sponsor. That doesn't mean he's immune to the struggle, far from it. He still walks up to that edge sometimes. Oddly, it's in those moments that the "Twin Thing" kicks in... and he feels an inexplicable and complete sense of love. He knows that's Nell's, and that always pulls him back from the brink. He never did find Joey, or find out what happened to her. And sometimes he still wakes up with nightmares that he's on the floor of the Red Room, or that Joey visits him with her runny-egg eyes. But no matter how hard it gets, he feels what Nell feels for him... and that always pulls him through.

Theo: Theo and Trish got married, and moved far away from New England. They currently live in Portland. She still works with children, but enjoys a much smaller patient pool. She specializes in the kids who are hardest to reach, and she's sought after for her unique and uncanny ability to connect with them. She doesn't wear gloves anymore, but she still avoids the very crowded places. She and Trish take long hikes, grow their own pot, and travel frequently and spontaneously. They're considering a surrogate... and if it's a girl, they're going to name her Eleanor.

Steven: Steve and Leigh have two kids, and are thinking they might stop there. He never wrote about what happened at Hill House, but he still writes. Science fiction. Leigh recommended the genre as a way for him to focus on the future, not the past. He likes it a lot. It's pulpy, but it's earnest. He maintains Hill House, as it is his responsibility, but he doesn't enter the property beyond the gates. He has a rotating collection of people service the property itself, always during the day, and only for a few hours at a time.

Hill House stands quietly and silently in the hills. There is something different about it. Still the same energy, but without the malice. Steve assumes this is because of Hugh, Nellie and Olivia, who maybe curb the most malicious energies of the house from within. While shadows still walk in the windows at night, there are no living souls there to see them. Mostly, Steven imagines the spirits inside spend most of their days sleeping. And if they cannot sleep, he imagines Mrs. Dudley singing softly to them on the wind.

There is grief, for all of them. There are nightmares. Horrible dreams of moldy rooms and phantom hands. They meet twice a year, usually without spouses, to catch up and raise a glass to Nell, and their parents. There is a lot of healing still to do, a lot of therapy, a lot of introspection. But there is peace, too. There is love. There is forgiveness.

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Hace una semana ví la película «Barbarian» en Star+ y creo que tiene muchas cosas a su favor, además que da mucho tema para hablar, pero en determinadas circunstancias sería solo para hacerle spoiler a alguien y arruinarle su experiencia de visionado.

Ocurre que al hablar de ciertos personajes se pasa a hablar de sus motivaciones y acciones y eso entra a arruinar la experiencia (A mi modo de ver).

Sí, creo que puede darse el caso en que algunas decisiones que toman los personajes puedan crear ese momento en que la suspensión de credibilidad se pueda romper. ¿En serio alguien querría volver a tratar de quitar una sartén con aceite chisporroteante en un fogón sabiendo que se puede quemar (porque ya le ocurrió?

Un ejemplo sin relación con lo visto que trato de usar para dejar esa imagen y el tipo de decisiones a los que se enfrentan los personajes. Siempre hay razones para tratar de sacar la sartén... Y en la película y en ese tipo de momentos creo que están bien explicadas... Cierto, a mi modo de ver.

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Good day Mr Flanagan. please what does "the rest is confetti" mean to you and in the context it was used in hill house??

Okay, here we go. Buckle up for a long read.

To answer this, I've got to explain a little bit about what was happening and where I was when I sat down to write episode 10 of The Haunting of Hill House.

Hill House was not a fun shoot. The picture above is from very early in production, when I was still chubby and happy.

It was my first foray into television. I was absolutely terrified that I'd mess it up. So I'd opted to direct all of the episodes myself, figuring that - if nothing else - I'd have no one else to blame if it went south.

It was the most grueling professional experience of my career. The shoot was by no means a smooth one, every day was an uphill battle from a budgetary perspective, and between the three giant production entities involved with the production, I spent a lot of time fighting over the creative and logistical elements of the series.

I began losing weight. I was smoking two packs of cigarettes a day.

By the end of the shoot, I had dropped almost 40 lbs.

I was very depressed. Every day was a battle, and for the first time in my career, I wasn't excited to go to work in the morning. We were fighting for basic resources, fighting for the show we wanted, and even fighting amongst ourselves by the end. It was grueling.

We hadn't written all of the scripts when we started production. I believe we had finished through episode 7, but the rest of the scripts had to be finished while we were already shooting.

We'd mapped everything out in the writers room, and I had great support on the other episodes, but I was writing the finale solo. I'd thought I'd be able to juggle it with everything else. I quickly fell behind.

I finally got to the script about halfway through production. I'd work on it between takes at the monitor, and then get home to our tiny rental house in Atlanta, where Kate was waiting with our baby son. (One of the rare bright spots of this shoot came when Kate found out she was pregnant about halfway through production. We even named our daughter Theodora, in honor of her origins.)

I'd typically fall down from exhaustion when I got home, but I had to push through it and work on the script. My weekends were spent shotlisting and prepping for upcoming episodes. We didn't have enough time to stay ahead of prep, so every available day was used for that... I went three months without a single day off at one point.

I'd sit up late staring at the script. I was in a dark, dark place. Overwhelmed, exhausted, and feeling like I lived in an eternal present. Each day bled into the next and it didn't feel like there was an end in sight. That feeling of unreality was heightened because we kept returning to the same sets, same locations, and even the same scenes throughout the 100 shooting-day production. Stepping back into the exact room we had shot in days or weeks or even months ago made the whole thing feel absolutely surreal. Making moves is always an non-linear experience, but this one felt particularly so... it was like the days of our lives were happening to us all out of order.

I remember feeling something like despair creeping into my daily experience on the show. And I remember dwelling on that when I got into the scene work of episode 10.

As I worked through the draft, I recall that despair coloring a lot of what was on the page. My filter was breaking down. There's a monologue at the beginning of the episode where Steven's wife Leigh (played by my dear friend Samantha Sloyan) spews out a torrent of eviscerating insults about Steve's value as a writer. That is just me vomiting onto myself. She was voicing all of my deepest insecurities about myself at the time, and of what I was doing with this series.

She says "Is anything real before you write it, Steve? The things you write about, they're real. Those people are real, their feelings are real, their pain is real - but not to you, is it. Not until you chew it up, digest it, and shit it out onto a piece of paper and even then, it's a pale imitation at best."

This was the mindset I was in for a lot of the shoot. The writing became a reflection of a lot of that turmoil, and I knew who I was referring to in that monologue - I was talking about my family. I was talking about how much of their lives I'd used as building material for this show. I was talking about the fact that I'd lost two loved ones to suicide, and seen what it had done to my mother in particular. And I knew I was using - possibly even exploiting - those people for this series.

There's a lot of despair in this episode. The Red Room, as we conceived it, was a place that would feed upon those emotions. Grief, sadness, loss... those were the real ghosts of our series, and where our characters find themselves at the start of the finale. They're being slowly digested - eaten alive - by those feelings.

So finally, it came time to write Nell's final scene with her siblings. I knew from the outline we'd constructed in the writers room what this was supposed to accomplish - she was supposed to be their salvation. She was supposed to take all of these feelings that we'd been wrestling with and finally provide catharsis... finally say something that would free everyone.

I remember sitting with a blinking cursor for a long time. The Crain siblings had just turned and seen Nellie standing by the door, and suddenly were able to hear her speak. But what should she say? What would I say? What would I want someone to say to me?

What she ultimately says lays bare a lot of what I was thinking about when it comes to grief. It exists outside of linear time, much as I felt I existed at the time. That sense of eternal present, that sense of a nonlinear eternity of moments and memories - it all came out in her speech to her brothers and sisters.

I remember feeling, looking at my insane present and looking back at my past, how strangely overwhelmed I was by memories. That I wasn't experiencing time in a straight line, and hadn't been for a while - for the better part of a year, I'd felt more like I was standing in a whirlwind of moments. "Our moments fall around us like..." Nell said, and I recall sitting back and trying to find the words.

"Rain," for certain, but there was something too uniform about that. The moments of life as I experienced them weren't that orderly, they weren't that small. They didn't fall the same way. Some sailed by, fast and unremarkable, while others lingered in front of me, twisting and stretching. So it was a good word, but not the right word. I left it on the page though.

"Snow" was my next attempt. Better, in that I imagined the snow blowing in the wind, swirling and dancing and feeling more organic. More chaotic. More like life. But for some reason, the word that stuck with me, the word I felt Nell Crain would connect with was...

"Confetti."

And that was because I was thinking not of Victoria Pedretti at this point, but of Violet McGraw.

Violet played Young Nell, and I wondered what she might have said if she experienced time this way. As an adult, Nell was despairing. Nell was overwhelmed. But as a child... there was an innocence to the word. There was a joy to the word.

I imagined moments falling around her, this little girl with the big smile and the wide eyes. Her moments would be colorful. They would be of different shapes and sizes, some falling fast and some falling slow, flipping and turning and dancing in the air, independent of the others. Sparkling, whirling, doing lazy summersaults as they sauntered down to Earth.

I thought of myself, and of the members of my family. I thought of those we'd lost. I realized what I hoped for them, and for us all, in the end... was to look upon that mosaic of experience, that avalanche of days and minutes and moments... and to smile with some of the joy we had as children.

And this, I thought, was something that gave me hope. This gave me a glimpse of some kind of salvation for them. This was also how I hoped my life might seem if I was a ghost - a cascade of color and light and shape and movement, something I could dance in.

So Nell smiled and said... "or confetti."

It stuck with me. The rest of her monologue gets heavy again, and gets to the real point of the show - the point of the whole series, if I'm honest - and that's forgiveness.

I figured the only thing that would let the Crain children out of the Red Room was to be forgiven. I thought of the losses in my own family, and I thought of what I wished for my mother and for my aunts and uncles and cousins and I tried to pour that into her final words.

"I loved you completely, and you loved me the same," she said, "that's all." And this was the point I wanted the most to make. That at the end of our life, if we can say this about each other, the rest doesn't matter. The rest is that rainstorm, or that blizzard, that fell around this one central truth, and maybe built itself in piles around it, to the point we lost sight of it along the way.

And I thought again of that little girl, and almost as an afterthought, wrote "The rest is confetti."

I liked the way it sounded, but I was insecure about the line. I almost took it out, in fact. I remember asking Kate to read the scene and talking about that last line with her. "Is it too cute?" I wondered. She was on the fence. "Depends on how it's acted," she said, and I figured she was right. We could always take it out if it didn't work. The scene could end with "I loved you completely, and you loved me the same. That's all."

Why not shoot it and see what happened.

I turned in the script, we published it quickly so that we could start breaking it down and prepping it. And the next morning I was back on set. I'd deal with episode 10 when it came down the pipe again, sometime in the coming months. We had a lot of shooting to get through before I had to worry about it.

I recall Netflix asking me to cut a lot of that monologue, and I remember them also having questions about the "confetti" line. I pointed out that it didn't cost us any extra to shoot it all, it was only words, and fought to keep the script intact.

Ultimately, they insisted I make a series of cuts on the page. I begrudgingly agreed, but left Nell's speech alone. I made superficial cuts around it, throughout the draft, and even considered changing the font size to fool them into thinking it had gotten shorter (I ultimately was told I wouldn't fool anyone and not to risk starting a war). But Nellie's final goodbye stayed intact.

It must be said - Victoria Pedretti SLAUGHTERED this scene.

By the time we got around to filming it, things had never been worse for the production. There was almost nothing left for a lot of us. Tensions were sky-high, resources had been exhausted completely, and we were all ready to give up.

Filming in the mold-ridden Red Room was depressing, morose, and led to a lot of arguments and unpleasantness. The room itself just felt gross, always, and we were in there for days at a time. The last thing we had to shoot in there was Nellie's goodbye.

Victoria came to set having to push through pages of monologue, and she did so with captivating bravado. I recall being teary-eyed at the monitor watching her work. And when we finally made it to the last line, I watched her deliver it with... a smile. A sincere, innocent, longing, joyful smile. A smile informed by the sadness, grief, and loss of her own situation, of her own life... but a smile that finds forgiveness and grace after all. Pedretti knew how to say the line, and how that word would work.

And as she said it, I knew it would stay in the show.

Over the years, that sentence has become something of a tagline for The Haunting of Hill House. I'm always a bit mystified and touched when I see people approach me with the line on T-shirts, or even tattooed on their bodies.

I started signing it with autographs back in 2020 after enough fans asked me to. Now it's my go-to when I sign anything related to Hill House.

The line, for me, represents a lot of things.

It's about the insane, chaotic, non-linear experience of making that show. It's about trying to find and hold onto joy, even in the grips of despair.

It's about the way the moments of our lives aren't linear, not really, and how we may be unable to understand them as we exist in their flurry. It's about finding hope, innocence and forgiveness in the final reckoning.

And it's about how, outside of our love for each other, the rest is just... well, it's fleeting. It's colorful. It's overwhelming. It's blinding. It's dancing. And, if we look at it right, it's beautiful. But it's also light. It's tinsel. It flits and dances and falls and fades, it's as light as air. The rest is the stuff that falls around us, and flits away into nothing.

It's the love that stays, though.

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Where did you find the epitaph poem for Midnight Club?

Great question. I found it in this fantastic video essay by Ladyknightthebrave. The whole thing is worth a watch, but she cites the poem at the end of the video and I started getting teary-eyed. We chased it down for CLUB and it's one of my favorite moments of the series.

The poem is "Epitaph" by Meritt Malloy, and if you aren't familiar with it, here it is:

Epitaph

by Merrit Malloy

When I die Give what’s left of me away To children And old men that wait to die. And if you need to cry, Cry for your brother Walking the street beside you. And when you need me, Put your arms Around anyone And give them What you need to give to me.

I want to leave you something, Something better Than words Or sounds.

Look for me In the people I’ve known Or loved, And if you cannot give me away, At least let me live on in your eyes And not on your mind.

You can love me most By letting Hands touch hands, By letting Bodies touch bodies, And by letting go Of children That need to be free.

Love doesn’t die, People do. So, when all that’s left of me Is love, Give me away.

I’ll see you at home In the earth.

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Quiero otra temporada... ¡Netflix di que sí!

Hi Mike! Any news about a renewal of the midnight club?

No news yet... hoping to know something very soon. BUT, I'll tell you what... if for some reason Netflix does NOT elect to renew the show, I'll post a long blog that details all of the stuff we were going to do in season 2, and answers the outstanding mysteries of season 1. I'll put it up exclusively on Tumblr.

[cortaviento]

Ritual

Monjes de una religión secreta caminaron presurosos por largos pasillos subterráneos hasta la cripta que estaba bajo el palacio. El más viejo llevaba un libro. El eco de sus pasos chocaba en las paredes de piedra iluminadas por antorchas chisporroteantes.

El viejo monje dejó el libro sobre la mesa que estaba en el altar y miró a un lugar más oscuro hasta que distinguió el féretro de madera con incrustaciones de oro y jade. Abrió el libro con sus dedos torcidos y temblorosos, se aclaró la garganta.

Los demás monjes extendieron las manos cubiertas con un guante de sangre y ceniza en dirección al anciano. Este comenzó la lectura y los caracteres del libro comenzaron a danzar. Las paredes y el féretro también tenían esos caracteres y también estos comenzaron a moverse.

Un monje tuvo dudas de si lograrían completar el ritual, si tenían éxito revivirían a la reina. Habían ensayado por décadas. El fracaso significaba traer de territorios infernales criaturas imparables que se comerían a cada ser viviente en la tierra. Volvió a concentrarse.

Salieron sonidos desde el féretro. El anciano leyó con más fuerza, siguiendo el baile de los caracteres. El resto de los monjes comenzó un mantra para acallar los sonidos. El monje dubitativo sintió quemantes cosquilleos en sus manos. El dolor le impidió seguir en pie.

El anciano ya gritaba la lectura, ya sabía que alguien había fallado en el ritual. Si él no terminaba el ritual todos serían transformados en criaturas del inframundo. El féretro se balanceaba como las letras en su superficie y el libro.

Los caracteres tallados en la pared cambiaron a un color amarillo brillante y después a un rojo sangre. El anciano sintió el olor a azufre, después sintió arder su piel. No alcanzó a terminar de leer. Se derrumbó. Vio abrirse la puerta del féretro y una garra de allí.

El anciano escuchó los gruñidos de las criaturas que reemplazaron a los monjes. Deseó que quienes cuidaban el pórtico al final del largo pasillo no fallaran.

Unas poderosas garras aún con anillos de la realeza se posaron en el anciano y lo partieron en dos.

[cortaviento]

Los extraños (__parte 4__)

Cuatro. Consejos. Dormitorio.

Detrás de la casona había un patio enorme, en el centro un pozo con una muralla de piedra de baja altura que en la noche iluminada por las luces de la casona se veía siniestro. En el otro extremo del patio había dos casas de dos pisos con el mismo estilo arquitectónico de la casona aunque más pequeñas.  

Toda la gente caminaba en silencio, sintiendo una carga sobre sus hombros y algo dentro de sus gargantas que quería escapar.  De reojo miraron el pozo. Fueron escoltados por acólitos y acólitas que enviaron a una de las casas a las mujeres y a la otra, a los hombres. 

Las piezas eran estrechas y para una persona, tenían una pequeña ventana que daba a la oscuridad, una cama, un velador y un ropero que contenía la vestimenta para el día siguiente: un simple traje color amarillo con un cinturón escarlata. Apenas entraron a la habitación la puerta se cerró tras ellos y escucharon cómo le echaban llave.  La mayoría se derrumbó sobre la cama, entregados a un llanto silencioso.

Los únicos que disfrutaron la cena fueron los acólitos y sobre todo los que estaban manchados en sangre.  Llegó el momento en la cena que las conversaciones disminuyeron y se sintió el ambiente pesado, el temor se veía en la cara de todos. Franco también tenía miedo, pero por una razón diferente, no podía dejar de mirar la fuente de agua.  También le hubiese gustado conversar con su padre, lanzar ideas de como salir de allí o cómo sobrevivir, debía haber una manera.  Recordaba al compañero de su padre que le recomendó ir al cine con la familia, a pasarlo bien.  Él también pasó por lo mismo y había sobrevivido, ¿no?

Se sentó en la cama y trató de recordar cómo fue esa conversación que lo cambió todo.  Él estaba jugando en el teléfono mientras los adultos conversaban y recordaba más que tenían máscaras en vez de caras. Uno que recomendaba algo con desagrado, pero con cara de felicidad falsa y el otro hacía como que la aceptaba con otra sonrisa falsa y bromas extrañas en boca de su padre.  Era como si ese compañero de trabajo le provocara rechazo y solo siguiéndole el juego se iría pronto y ellos podrían ir a comprar cosas a la tienda de cómics.  Franco le conocía otras sonrisas falsas a su padre y bromas y dichos que le acompañaban como la vez que se estacionó mal y chocó el auto y al llegar a la casa contó una historia diferente a su madre, quién entendiendo lo ocurrido exageró respuestas y terminaron bromeando juntos. Con su compañero esa sonrisa parecía envenenada y el veneno estaba en el consejo y aunque su padre fingió que aceptaba al llegar a casa sonaba convencido, le parecía una buena idea. Como si hubiese sido hipnotizado para aceptarla, no podía encontrarle otra explicación.  Aunque con lo que estaba viviendo este día, Franco, podría concluir que había sido hechizado o conjurado, según el juego de cartas que compraba en la tienda de cómics.

Tal vez lo que debían hacer era aceptar todo lo que allí les dijeran, comportarse como les pedían y listo. No creía que alguien más muriera. 

Fue cambiando de idea con lo que vio en la noche que le dio pesadillas y lo que ocurrió al otro día en la mañana.  Antes de dormir la luz empezó a bajar de intensidad, ellos no tenían interruptor para apagarla, escuchó un golpe afuera y luego escuchó un grito en una pieza cercana. Franco miró por la ventana, él estaba en el segundo piso y vio a una decena de metros a una de las criaturas endemoniadas (que parecían perros alados) arañando una ventana. La persona en esa habitación veía a la criatura horrorizada. De repente se apagaron las luces y ya no se pudo distinguir nada.  No se escuchaba nada de afuera, solo el llanto proveniente de otras habitaciones.

Franco se propuso encontrar a la persona al otro día para hablar con ella de lo que vió. No pudo. A la persona la sacaron muerta de dentro del pozo a la mañana siguiente.  Los acólitos cubrieron el cuerpo con frazadas una vez que lo sacaron del pozo, sin embargo, todos vieron el cuerpo y su estado.  Todos guardaron silencio y quedaron temerosos de opinar. Franco pensaba que las heridas no parecían propias de la caída, que las posibles piedras filosas no provocan heridas que más parecen mordeduras, ¿no?

-Fin parte Cuatro-

Relato en progreso