#i am prone to bouts of insignificance

[nightcoremoon]

humans have always been evil and prone to bouts of depravity, sadism, and a pure lack of respect, integrity, honor, and appreciation of the value of human life. however, in centuries past they threw rocks and chopped off limbs and made public spectacles of creative ways to murder hungry people for stealing bread. now, homegrown white supremacist sociopaths buy guns and go on random shooting sprees as if killing some people in a walmart parking lot will save the country from "foreign invaders" even though merely 500 years ago white colonials came to this country and murdered all of the natives and stole the land out form under them; now they claim that the land they stole belongs to them and that the people who were here first are the invaders. because their hatred and their vitriol is only outmatched by the stupidity that has been spoonfed them by the political party that not only tolerates but openly advocates for this type of behavior.

this is nothing new. evil people have abused their power, the money they stole, and social conditioning through mob psychology forever. they always have and always will. and that's because nobody will stand up for what's right and stop them. "I'm glad it wasn't me" is the name of the game here. throughout history people have held up signs and spoken through hushed whispers and performed individual acts of petty reactionary vengeance just to feel the slightest bit better about themselves. I helped. true, there have been some exceptions to the rule. the underground railroad to free slaves. oskar schindler keeping a few hundred jews alive and safe from hitler's death march. the french revolution. but now we're in a world where children aren't safe enough to go to a school they mandatorily must attend or else be removed from their parents and put into a broken system of human trafficking, delivering children directly into the hands of pedophiles, child molesters, rapists, abusers, monsters. they have to go to a place where at any minute some angry white boy with a confederate flag hat can show up and murder them en masse because the people running this country are paid by shadow organizations who profit off of child murder by selling guns and ammo and then arranging the subsequent funerals. you think the spike in funeral costs has nothing to do with this spike in shootings? guaranteed the NRA has stock in companies that sell coffins for teenagers. and they can get away with this because they spend some of that money on manufacturing gang wars between the ethnic minorities, distracting what few 'good' police officers exist from the real enemy. the force puts the good cops on wild goose chases and let the dirty ones sit on their asses doing not a goddamn thing to investigate the corruption that the rich arrange to keep themselves on that pedestal. then they point and laugh as we bicker and squabble with each other on the internet, because we all know that they're screening EVERYTHING. they see it all. and they know that they're safe because they're counting on human nature. they're counting on inherent goodness winning out, pulling xanatos and exploiting that. because despite what I said earlier about humans being evil, a human is a paragon of goodness. one person can change the world. but people as a whole are evil, are stupid, are willing to be complicit in a broken system so long as it doesn't hurt them on an individual basis. but as individuals, we humans are pretty good about things for the most part. 300,000,000 people in this country and only 300 of them per year go on those rampages. that's 1 in 1,000,000 people; that's literally only 0.0001%. humans are good people overall. but the problem is that 'good' is completely fake. what is good or bad? good is that killing is wrong but when cops and soldiers do it then it's okay??? is killing a murderer before he kills again bad because it's murder or good because if you didn't do it then you through inaction had caused another murder? does a murderer really deserve to live any more than some innocent victim just because you were too squeamish to pull the trigger? a wise man once said "if you choose not to decide you still have made a choice" and that wise man was geddy lee from rush and while that band is 100% pure canadian cheese that quote was from a philosopher I don't know the name of but am sure he was some guy who said that one time and meant it because it's true. if you choose to do nothing in the face of disaster then you are contributing to the chaos.

it's time to step up and do something about the nightmare our society has become. and since the left are cowards, the right are complicit in the problem, the center are smug assholes who get high off of the smell of their own farts, the solarpunks are all idealists with no grounding in reality, the dirty commies are fucking dirty commies, the socialists have no power, the anarchists have no platform, the libertarians are so cocksure that they're right about things that they've shut off from the world into their niche meme section of twitter, and the people who don't care about politics directly benefit from not caring, I don't see any real solution coming. all we can do is hope cthulu comes to clean the muck off of this insignificant speck of mud and wipe us off the face of the universe permanently. nothing else will get results... well, nothing else that people are willing to try. as far as I can tell, nobody wants to jump into the fire. nobody wants to bomb the white house or the pentagon or the senate and house or any rally.

only the evil people will kill.

only the evil ones are willing to change things.

and that's why the evil ones will outlive us all.

[dotsypopsiclestick]

I’ve come to a point in my life where every single new thing has begun to scare the ever living hell out of me. I crave change like I crave air or sleep or food or companionship, yet it freezes the blood in my body, stutters my heart, and makes me want to curl into a ball in the center of my bed. Anything new, anything at all makes me want to run and hide. A new place to live? Forget about it. Looking for a new car? Hell no. A new job? I’d rather die. Yet, my life feels stagnant. Meaningless. I can’t bring myself to change the things I hate and yet, they shackle me all the same. What’s life without change? Without adventure? And it’s not like I’ve never been adventurous, never been prone to sudden bouts of change and discovery. What is wrong with me now that I can’t even bear to think of changing all the things I hate in my life? Why can’t I stop myself from the ever growing terror that if I change my life I’ll only make it worse? Only make it harder for myself to untangle this horrifying mess, this labyrinth of who I am and what I want. Does it ever get easier? Or do people just fall into a complacency with their lot in life? Am I simply doomed to spend my small insignificant existence in this constant limbo of dormancy?

[alchemisland]

The Antiquarian and the Devil's Dog - I

The week we spent cleaning out Great Grandad's house was an eventful one. More exciting at least than the days previous spent in various offices gathering the correct permissions to enter the old place. In the oldest parts of the house damp rotted the old floorboards until they warped, collapsing under their own weight leaving perilous apertures eager to swallow clumsy steppers. Agencies were reluctant to hand over the keys without first checking everyone's insurance ad nauseum.

The old stone stairs leading to the basement, chipped from a thousand previous descents, looked liable to break if one wasn't selective with their boot placement. It's funny, I thought, if you fell through one of those holes and ended up in the basement, you'd be avoiding the dangerous stairs; the lesser of two evils. Note to inform the insurance company of a possible loophole. Desperate to avoid litigation on our part, the agencies agreed that we could enter under supervision.

The world had changed since this place was last inhabited. When the door finally opened, stubborn in its frame after years of neglect, it seemed a room unstuck in time. Dust particles hung in the air and as they danced I wondered what secrets they were privy to, and whether they had been the component atoms of a larger host previously. Even her ghosts were bent and haggard with age, bones wilting in the oppressive dank. A hundred years ago the servants were so afraid of the myriad spectres said to inhabit the long halls and shadowed staircases that they had refused to enter certain rooms, but no such reports have been filed in nigh on seventy years. If those same ghosts existed now, they languished apathetically in the walls, stirring only occasionally to rattle the pipes or drag their boots. Curios and trinkets plundered at the height of Empire decorated every mantel in the house and although it went unsaid, everyone in the family was petrified of stumbling across something less than savoury. Just to be sure we cross referenced some of the dates in our literature and found the Nazi party came a little after Bryn's time. Spared of that anxiety we set to looking, for what we weren't sure. Something of value, some seemingly insignificant object that might illuminate this murky character.

Bryn, God rest him, was a renaissance man in the style of the natural philosophers of his age; a doctor, an artist, a war hero, an antiquarian and amateur archaeologist all rolled into one. Of course it would be remiss not to mention his more illicit interests like bootlegging alcohol and collecting occult manuscripts, but the more sordid of the two pastimes fell by the wayside when he raised his station in society, becoming an educated and respected member of a prominent archaeological interest group. Selous' Sweat they called themselves, in tribute to the conservationist and African big-game hunter of the same name.

Selous some of these artefacts for mad stacks, I thought with a smirk.

Everything in the house had a double coating of dust. Doing our rounds and cataloguing the cabinets of curiosities meant that doors long undisturbed were opened, both literally and figuratively. Turning the handle of one particular door, I saw it led to an upstairs sitting room on a landing between two flights of stairs, one spiralling down towards the sitting room, although there was scarcely room to sit amidst the Grecian urns and Japanese decorative plates precariously hanging from the walls, and the other up towards the darkroom on the top floor. The sitting room was strangely devoid of clutter except for an enormous table. The rounded surface was a dark mahogany, polished until shining with a protective glass covering placed on top.

I wondered why a table, even one so fine as this, was given a room to itself above the other priceless artefacts in the catalogue, which included a Han dynasty vase, the glasses worn by W.B. Yeats in his twilight years and an enormous set of ornate mirrors purchased at auction when one of the grand manors in Kilkenny was forced to liquidate all non-holdings related assets following the collapse of the family after the war. The mirrors, according to the former owner Mrs. Fitzbannion, were the pride of their manor house. Mrs. Fitzbannion hung the mirrors in the centre of the main hall, ensuring all visitors knew the extent of their wealth. The frames were carved to represent natural wonders, a pinecone here, an antler there, and each coated in burnished gold leaf. Gold had faded to brass in the intervening years, as if the mirror losing its place of prominence in its household stole the last scion of lustre from it altogether, and I wondered had the mirror ever been so ostentatious as described.

Inspecting the table, I ran my finger along the protective glass panel and found no trace of dust. Doubly curious. Bryn was an adventurer and had no shortage of vigour in his old age, but he was still not one for dusting. Attributing his longevity and stamina to a liquid concoction that he called Lightning Wine, part alcoholic cocktail, part vegetable juice with a hint of soda water. In truth I had only agreed to help with this jumped-up Spring cleaning session in the hopes of finding a vat of the naughty sauce hidden in a secret panel, which I would ferry out under my coat and imbibe later on with the lads.

I knelt on my haunches to inspect the legs of the table, wondering if they might shed light on the mystery. Clean as a whistle below too. Ivory. That was it. The legs were made of ivory. Holy shit, was this stuff even legal anymore? I heard a story in school that at one time ivory was so coveted they had to remove the tusks from museum specimens to discourage robbers, low-hanging fruit and all that. My sister volunteered in the Natural History Museum in Dublin while studying zoology and recounted wondrous tales over dinner about their storage rooms in the inner-city; numerous thylacine specimens, gigantic Irish elk antlers and wooden storage crates full of elephant tusks, corridor after corridor of specimen jars like one imagines Noah's Ark appeared at capacity. Into the table legs were carved detailed images of warriors armed with spears facing down ferocious lions. No doubt an artwork of such fine craftsmanship was either manufactured by British labourers merely basing their work on an existing tribal peace, or worse, plundered from a deposed native royalty, like that Malaysian ruby. Something else there too, a piece of paper placed under one of the legs to balance it. I pulled the parchment out slowly, like the highest-stakes game of Jenga you can imagine and saw that it was written in blue ink. Unmistakably the spider-like scrawl of Great Grandad Bryn; prone to eccentricity and hyperbole in his cups though. I doubt any of what was written should be taken as gospel, but damned if it doesn't make for a spooky story. The following are the excerpts from what I assume was a field diary, kept as part of his funding agreement with the local museums. They would fund his expeditions and as long as he provided colourful commentary and witticisms enough to draw a crowd. They proudly patronised his occasional dalliances into the otherworldly in the spirit of derring-do! Bryn mentions early in the text that he keeps a formal and an informal diary, the latter only for his own perusal. If what I read is his own private correspondence, then why hide it?

April 1928.

I, Martin Bryn-Kolkiln, wish to commit to paper the strange events of Friday last, April 9th 1928. For the first time in some weeks I have had time enough to sit down and gather my thoughts, my rest of late being much disturbed by strange fancies and day-time delusions. My postprandial scribblings have long been a stable of my working week and no servant dares to stir past my quarters upon noticing the glow neath the door that signals its occupancy. Lately the notepad remains devoid of ink or flourish and I strain my ears to catch the scratching of a passing servant stepping a mite too hard on the creaky floorboard, hoping to catch some snippet of gossip in the scullery that might rouse my wrist to swiftness. In less fanciful terms I have been much beset by idleness and my usual studious nature replaced by bouts of idleness and procrastination. I do not fear that you will judge me too harshly for my slovenliness though once I recount my adventure in full.

I find the drone of chatter where people gather too distracting to complete any semblance of serious writing. Even the purchase of army-grade ear plugs have not relieved the issue, much to my chagrin. Three pairs for a pound, army surplus. Let me say this; if they cannot stop the sound of idle chatter, they aren't going to do much when a whizzing mills explodes just shy of your nape. The seller, one Mr. Kieran Malleus - 'hearin' Kieran' to his friends - in due course will read my thoughts on his wares, in so many crass words as can be mustered in the shrill silence they offer.

Recently I have been away from kith and kin, pining for home comforts in the scalding desert sun, an enormous white offensiveness radiating omnipresent heat. By night when the flaming orb retreats beneath the dunes, the shifting sands hold much latent heat. Torturous for a Kentish gent like myself. I will keep complaints brief. I am grateful of course for the patronage of my peers, and for the many strange and exotic sights I witnessed, including the discovery of a buried idol in the former fertile crescent which spurred my journey to action. Natural sights of great wonder met my eyes at every turn; clear skies above the dunes like reflected water, the night a matte-painting of stars in every hue; twinkling blues shining intensely for a moment only to disappear against the force of its own vibrancy, white and yellow dazzling celestial bodies too winking in turn, and a fiery red one clearest of all. Fayzad, my loyal manservant and foreman, informs me this was Venus. Brutal aerial bombing raids and fierce close-quarters combat destabilized the region. A land rent asunder yielded treasures hidden since ancient epochs, including our idol. In the charred frame of a ruined mosque, a set of dusty steps led us to the idol, stark and malignant in its shadow-haunted grotto. The discovery provided ample fuel for speculation among my wider uneducated workforce, whispered stories of Templar treasure and forbidden Rosicrucian gospels abounded, spreading like wildfire.

The journey from the train station in London towards Matfield in Kent is punctuated with occasional wondrous natural vignettes. Wild horses cresting grassy knolls against the backdrop of God's own country. White blossoms on trees, ranks of saplings, stunted now but enormous come the vernal bloom. I attempted to conduct my preliminary report of sites I'd visited but, through my rubber stoppers, I made out the voice of an inebriated Scot over the din. A veteran was seated in the opposite carriage, alone. The poor creature must have been exposed to gas in some forgotten melee, of which he was perhaps the surviving witness. Across the British Isles there was a thousand such sad scenes. Pineapple gas by the sound, that consistent hack. Each time he flurried, it knelled the end of my creative spell.

Upon returning I informed colleagues and close friends of my intent to convalesce, retiring to my chambers in solitude for a fortnight to document my trip. It came as a reluctant surprise then when a letter arrived, delivered by hand, requesting my urgent presence at the servants graveyard on the grounds of the Powers Estate. The letter spoke of a strange discovery when work for a proposed pleasure garden began requiring the removal of several headstones. The author of the note, which was neither signed nor written in a hand I recognized, went on to state that he or she supposed that their discovery would be pertinent to my historical interest. This mysterious invitation stoked the embers of my imagination ablaze. I was suddenly keen to reevaluate my proposed 'mental wellbeing day', instead thinking perhaps I took those days on the insistence of a friend, nothing more.

I set off that same balmy spring evening, with only a light jacket tossed overshoulder, a saggging houndstooth peak unsteady on my head like an ill-fitting wig and a whistle on my lips; no rain had been forecast. The note went on to describe the dig, which had concluded. My field tools were not required. The closing statement, worst of all, sent shivers through my body. The scribe, although amateur, was firm in his words. Confident in his assessment, they had uninterred the skeleton of an enormous hellhound, three times larger that the most gargantuan of Siberia.

My mind was aflame with vivid images of a shadowy hyena howling, cackling, pooling stinking saliva in the sharp corners of its mouth. I wondered might their excavation have uncovered Black Shuck or some folkloric descendant; an enormous wolf-like creature that stalked the leafy lanes of Suffolk in the 15th century. Standing a keen seven feet, allowing for an inch either end, 200 pounds at a glance, around the average weight of a heavyweight pugilist, the fearsome beast came fearless. When mist swirled underfoot making each step unsteadier than the last, when the wind carried whispers of movement on the moors, Black Shuck had left his cave. So bulky was he that the thudding sound of his footfalls roused the town from sleep and into panic. He came in the night, terrible and formless, gliding unseen like steam. The panicked citizenry heard that same familiar padding, the warning bell would sound, sending the denizens spilling towards the abbey. Room was made for all to shelter in the house of God. Assembled clergymen bolted shut the door, placing large timbers across in a x. The beast effortlessly barged through as if hurtling through a wall of damp paper. A hulking mass of muscle, rippled and bulging as if cast in alabaster. The archives make no mention of how the beast was slain. The last word on the matter is not even a word but a sketch of a boulder by one Father Nestin Goodfaythe, showing where the beast is supposedly interred on hallowed ground, underneath a weeping willow near the west wall of the piper's rest.

I cycled to the train station within half an hour and caught the evening train. Upon detramming, it was only a short stroll past the hamlet to the Powers Estate, a foreboding stone fortress stark against the pastureland. The sky was flecked with silver dots, like an enormous glowing wisp out of space had poked a hole in the fabric of our world, allowing a sliver of otherworldly pearlescence through.

Clouds gathered ominously above the rounded domes of the main compound. Various follies, fountains and statue-strewn walkways decorated the grounds, paling in comparison to the oppressive majesty of the Grand Lodge. The design was an eclectic mix of Eastern and Western classical art styles, rounded arches and marble pillars dappled with grey, obsidian gargoyles with contorted faces, forked tongues lolling out of their pursed half mouths. Other misshapen oddities perched on the buttresses. French tapestries and Roman marbles hung on every landing, enormous paintings of the glorious hunt in gilt frames on every inch of spare wall. Pictish stones looted from Scotland decorated the fish pond, inscribed with mysterious runes that no doubt held eldritch knowledge.

Casement Power, younger brother of the late Lord Richard, inherited no property or bonds. Instead he was allowed an extremely modest annual wage. He spent the days hunting. No scurrying fox or baited badger could satiate his warrior spirit, so he traveled to Africa, there shooting the largest game.

It was there he spoke with cannibal tribes, saw serpents of enormous size unfurl endlessly and slither away into the brown water and met great heroes. He also had collected many curios and tribal artworks on his expeditions. The remnants of his leaden conquests lined the walls as trophies. Enormous mammoth tusks from Siberia carved with runes framed every double door, spears crossed above every mirror.

Somewhere inside, although I can't recall where, the skeleton of the beast that hunted the denizens of Gevaudan is displayed. I know for a fact that this grizzly exhibit exists, it's listed on the manifesto of items in their portion of Stately Homes of England. I cannot verify as to the validity of the article. I'd vouch many a French peasant eats well selling hundreds of such cryptozoological items. Could the hell hound I am to examine be a relation come to England, or worse, brought?

I have heard tales from reputable sources of large cats loose on the moors. Escapees from circuses and private menagerie. Others, former pets released by their owners after quadrupling in size.

Perhaps these amateurs had merely uncovered the remains of an exotic pet. The grounds were no stranger to beasts from the dark continent; crimson parrots in enormous metal cages, striped fish that glowed when moonlight struck on the pond, peacocks from India striding the grounds, ducks from Canada. Would it be completely out of question for a jungle cat to have made this castle its home? I think not.

On his extensive travels around China and Africa studying prehistoric art Richard Power collected many priceless artworks and looted great tombs of their treasures years before the arrival of Western antiquarians. His horde included petroglyphs, gilded sarcophagi and even a mummified cat from a Witch's Bazaar outside Khartoum. If Richard Powers was alive today, he would sit coiled atop his twinkling doubloons with plumes of smoke trailing from either nostril, content to wait for judgement day in the cavernous treasury rumored to exist beneath his house.

Many of the great houses had fallen to destitution, their custodians gathering dust on gilded thrones. The best of their heirs sent to France among the officer classes. Although the bulk of the BEF was made up of working class men, the aristocratic classes were decimated also. Such was the ways of war. These men playing chess with the lives of the small folk would, to fulfill their end of whatever Faustian pact, give up their own sons. Of course not all elderly Lords were callous in sending their offspring away, perchance to die. Many wrote letters to school chums occupying lofty administrative positions requesting exclusion in exchange monetary reward. All such offers were denied.

Powers lost three son. Two at Mons, another at Ypres. The angels had not seen fit to protect them.

That dread sound of motorcycle tyres across pebbles as it stirs to a halt. The clink of medals as the messenger spans the drive. Measured footfalls, a military gait, approaching the door. Closer now, the parent white-faced knowing what dread news awaits.

Folklore and farm chatter aside; the Powers had deep roots here. A Powers had lived on this land since 1640. Who knew what secrets those whispering old stones might yield to those inclined to listen.

Fortunately the Lord has a nephew, strong, sensible and of age. Lord Nigel Power, Earl of Sookford and 3rd Baron of Westian, current custodian of the Powers Estate was not unkind. Scholarly and stoic like the Greek philosophers he admired and quoted in his cups, but always keen to share a nod and wag in passing. Not to give the impression we are acquainted, for I hardly know the man but to don my hat in passing, occasionally commenting if the weather be note-worthily tempestuous.

Already noting my own apprehension, measured steps, breath slowed and women unless necessary, I proceeded toward the gate. Wintry grass crunched understood. Hypnotised by its granduer, I craned to see the lip of the battlements. A fortress grim and impregnable, fit for a martial family.

Arrows, oil and boulders would have rained from on high to decimate prospective invaders. Just then, a gust swept past violently, lifted my tails and carried with it faint sounds of distant war. A whispered scream. Snippets of intense crackling fire. Rhythmic thwacks of loosed bows in tandem. I shivered. I begged the spirits leave me, confine their unrest to the kirkyard.

The last light faded. I approached the iron gates. Each rail was a jagged black spear rising from the capstone. A black bas relief centred the entryway. I pushed it open. It dragged on its hinges, howling in dull flight. A dread chorus, shrill and how long it lasted - I almost placed my fingers into my ears for relief!

This fright rather knocked my senses. I stirred on the threshold and gathered scattered wits. Every loose stone, dancing leaf and singing spring breeze now whispered portents. I resigned to ignoring whatever gnostic Delphian beckoned. I accepted the languid gate swing as a sign of reluctance to permit my entry on the house's part. Old places do not lightly relinquish their secrets.

I immediately turned sharply right upon entering, moving from the winding gravel drive lined with golden cedars down a snaking path trodden through the grass, towards a distant glow I assumed to be the site. With forearm raised against grabbing branches, I fumbled through the darkness, taking little note of the uneven terrain underfoot. I strode toward a copse copse with a clear vantage of the servant's graveyard. The site was cordoned with rope. Torches jammed into the ground illuminated the site, presumably for my own benefit. A small crowd had gathered, huddled together, gnattering around one of the beacons. A man turned and waved upon seeing my shaded form, evidently the letter writer.

Grass grew greyer, more sickly inside the roped area. Scions of jagged rock tore through the topsoil giving the impression of a golem beneath the firmament. This field was the only spot that didn't yield healthy bloom. Small surprise it was designated such a dark purpose. Its owner had little use for land that didn't yield.

A terrible scream rang out as I took my first ginger step toward him. Shrill, unpleasant, razorlike. The banshee's wail, a chorus of seven trumpets that tolled the opening of the seventh seal, the Howling of the Djinn! Hark! The dread screech of a terrible wyrm, phasing through realities in permanent agony.

A bright spark glowed brightly in the sky above the open grave. Unaccustomed to the light, my eyes began watering heavily. I tried sjtitkng my eyes tight, but like raging floodwaters surmounting an impassable object through the smallest grikes and stony slits, they coarsed unheeded. I turned and a strange thing occurred. I found myself back in the thicket, where the branches like fingers had caressed me only a moment before. The light of the site up ahead in the distance. What vile trickery this?

I stared at my hands, barely able to discern their shape in the darkness. I raised them, cupped my face and messaged my crown. I needed to feel the bone and blood underneath. Something tangible now that I was untethered from the real. I needed to be positive I wasn't dreaming. It was bitterly cold. Was it possible to feel cold while unconscious? Doubtful. Sudden nausea stole my legs. I keeled over, holding my stomach, retching onto the damp grass.

The beacons in the distance began igniting and extinguishing in sequence, strobing and contorting, casting long shadows. I tucked my head to my chest, as a hedgehog does under duress. Then all was dark. The beacons doused simultaneously. The wet grass beneath my head changed to something hard and slick, with many sharp points. I lifted one eyelid and saw the gates. I was outside the compound, as if I had never before entered.

The dark contours of the bas relief were more ominous now. The bulbous shapes made my skin crawl. Brushing rocks in my palms on the thigh of my trousers, I winced to my feet.

Yes, the beings that had at first seemed Grecian effigies of perfect men hunting now altered in the pale moonlight. One idle moonbeam shone directly on the relief, as if a cherubim spotlight was held fast. These hulking icons, although lacking perspective, seemed a forbidden sight. I recoiled in horror but dared myself to investigate further. I stooped closer, focusing on one particular figure. Let me first describe the image whole; pitiful, by compare I can only cite passages from Revelations, even they do not convey the full horror I beheld. Lacking the vocabulary to describe the 'otherness' of its shape, Revelations must serve as an imaginative stimulus. The beings were contorted demons. The bodies and genitals of men but coated every inch with coarse black hair, thick and spidery. Enormous round eyes like that of a fish, but where a fish emits vacancy and the black of their eyes reflects rather than radiates, these implied great wisdom. Enormous descrying orbs, omnipresent to witness all events for all of time, as Mathesula.

Where their mouths should be instead jutted enormous jaws like that of the snapping Nile crocodiles, who since antiquity have smiled menacingly beneath the murk. The figure I was hypnotically drawn to had an enormous stinging tail protruding from the end of his tailbone, hanging low off the ground before looping upwards into the sky. A stinger slick with venom poised at the shoulder to strike, dripping evilly. Alone among his number, he was armed with a this pestilent whip, clad in hard black plate no sword would dent, distinguishing him as a leader of sorts, if rank exists within an anarchy of grotesques.

Even as fantasy this folly was something gratuitous. The metal seemed slick, oozing, though no rain fell that night. No hint of varnish in the air. Perhaps twas merely the combination of moonlight trickery and the all-night reading sessions of yesteryear where I filled my mind with all manner of sidhes, dobhar chus and mushrooms out of space. The relief was a ballroom fancy, no more. A remnant of the freakshow era, like some stately houses with curiosity cabinets intact.

I pushed the gate open as a matter of promptness. Again it swung slowly and screeched, reeeeeeeeeeeeeeee - like a vixens wail. Events were playing out exactly as they had only moments ago. Only now, when I entered the dig site was to my left, and much closer besides.

I was sure I had turned right last time. Did the last time really happen? A trick of my own mind or played by something darker. Some being drawn to bored mischief, interfering with the affairs of mortals. Perhaps twas some fancy I took. A moon dream. Lord knows I had heard tales of drunken farmers roaming around small paddocks unable to find an exit, while the faeries peered through the hawthorn barbs in hysterics.

While we are in the realm of loons, perhaps it was an angel's vision of the future. Warding me away from the toothed darkness inside the grave.

To steady my nerves I decided to voice the skeptic aloud into the night. Gases and wisps in marshes were spirits to feudal farmers, before wise men came and dispelled their ignorance with the torch of logic. Perhaps all I was experiencing now was merely some as of yet unexplained phenomena. An unseen chemical in the air released by the digging causing hallucinations. I had been travelling recently, a surefire way to unsettle oneself. Any excuse that steered my mind from abject terror.

I proceeded to the site, only this time no sliding mud prevented passage; the thicket of thorns where I had surely stooped and spied the distant braziers nowhere to be found.

There was still time to turn for home. Trains wouldn't run until morning, I might safely walk the tracks and upon reaching my station, fetch my bike. If I departed and kept a keen pace, I would be abed before the witching hour.

[arsnovac12]

Blog Post 1

I go on runs from time to time when I’m back in Burbank, I enjoy keeping active, but it’s mostly an excuse to get out of the house. When I come home on holiday, I become confined to my parents house without any means of viable transportation. I have my drivers license, sure, but no car. My parents can’t afford to buy me one, and I can’t afford to get one myself. In fact, even if I could afford a car, I certainly couldn’t afford the insurance to go with it. Anyway, all this is to say I go on runs so I don’t feel too confined to my house.

That’s not very interesting, is it? Some things just tend to be that way. The life of a poor twenty-one year old white kid is never all that interesting in the first place. My life, my story, whatever it is, is not irregular. In fact, it’s one most people in America know very well, because it gets championed whenever one of us poor white kids gets rich and famous. Surprise, surprise, it happens pretty frequently.

So why write about it? I don’t know. Does it really matter if no one sees it in the first place? Maybe not. I guess I backed myself into a corner. If you’re reading this (if anyone is reading this) you’re probably expecting me to dive further in. Ultimately, you might say, there’s no point in agonizing over whether or not you’re going to talk about your life, because you already started writing a blog post about it, and it has to go somewhere. It does, doesn’t it? So why start with a lengthy preamble full of rhetorical questions? Besides being a clear literary crutch I’m struggling with, I think I feel indebted to having a conversation or dialogue about these things, as if to hide from some private guilt I have in telling any personal story. Writing has clearly become some sort of therapy to me, where I play both doctor and patient. The results are always inconclusive.

Anyway I should get back to the bullshit lede about running. Look, I like running, and it’s when my head is its most clear, so forgive me for using it as a starting point. Most of my ideas come to me when I run, so it was only fitting that it become the brief anecdote that starts a blog post that holds the kernel of what I’m going for. Which, now that I’m thinking about it, I didn’t really get to. Look at me, whining before I even finished my “insignificant thing is contorted into something profound” anecdote. Okay, I’ll finish the story:

I like to go on runs. I feel trapped at my house, and I like to get out. Anyway, whenever I run, I take the same path. It leads away from my house towards the park in the hills where people would take their prom photos back in high school. The path mostly runs parallel to the major streets and hits several large intersections on its way. In all, the run from the house to the park and back is about five miles. Yesterday, I reached the park and stopped for some water. This wasn’t irregular or anything, but I took my time and drank more that I usually would. Then, something compelled me to keep running. The hills in Burbank are filled with expensive homes, and near the top of the street, sort of tucked away, there’s a pretty large mansion that’s almost gothic in its design. Anyway, I guess it was my curiosity that drove me to keep going. To get a look at that mansion, and the others around it.

So, I kept running for another half mile or so to see this mansion. On the way up, the houses got larger and more impressive looking, and I was filled with a mounting sense of dread. Eventually I reached the cul-de-sac with the house on its end. Naturally the street, called Viewcrest if you can believe it, was the most decadent one yet. Their driveways were filled with expensive cars I don’t know the names of, carefully manicured lawns, and about ten security cameras lining every porch. I got closer to the end of the street where the imposing mansion was, but it was tucked away from the front and hardly visible. I didn’t get much closer than fifty or sixty feet. The drive way had a large black Hummer sitting in it; another, more psychological warning sign for someone like me to keep away.

I left pretty quickly after I got there. No one was out, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of being unwelcome. Before I turned the corner and left the street completely, I had the strange desire for someone to come out of their house and scold me for even coming there. In this fantasy, would I stand my ground, or run away as is fitting for my station? My brain firing it’s typically small amount of synapses couldn’t quite make it that far. Instead, I was caught up in the swell of what righteous injustice such a thing should muster.

This story isn’t very interesting, I know. Nothing really happens in it and there isn’t much imagery to it, but it caught me off guard as I thought about it again today. I had the idea to write about the experience soon after it happened while I was still running, but I, ever the proactive one, put it off. In sitting down with it today, I realize how full of shit I am.

Before I go on, I’ll give a little more context for my life. As mentioned briefly before, I’m a poor white kid. My parents are loving if occasionally abusive, or maybe abusive if occasionally loving. We live in my (deceased) grandmothers house and can’t afford any necessary repairs on it to make the place livable. My dad lost his job about a year and a half ago that was going to take him to retirement, now he works at target. My mother is a hoarder, not to the extreme you may have seen on television, but certainly well beyond what the general society might deem as healthy. She works just enough hours at the Disney Corporation’s day care so that they don’t have to give her full time benefits.

Two of my adult brothers still live at home, crowding the house further. They could, should they allot their funds correctly, afford to have their own place, but my parents discourage that sort of thing. Coming from lower middle class families, both of them have really only known economic uncertainty their whole lives. To have their children live lives separated from themselves means certain uncertainty. Plus, when you don’t have the kids at home, there’s no one left to accuse of being a burden.

I, more than any of my brothers, struggled against my parents to have a normal life. For a while I was pretty damaged; my parents fundamental conservatism really did a number on me. I was a hateful kid, saying cruel things to people that didn’t deserve it. When I got to high school, it took a little while, but I became a better person. Still prone to bouts of selfishness, I began to try a little harder for things. I quit running competitively in high school to join the theater, much to my parents chagrin, and also started dating. Naturally my parents tried putting a stop to both.

By the time I finished high school, I had cut ties with most everyone that knew me there. By its end, I had partially realized that I hadn’t progressed all that much as a person and was still rather selfish. My assumptions that people did not like me were eventually proven correct when I had finally done something that had made me worth disliking. I receded further into myself, even more aware of my deepest flaws.

Eventually I made it to college where I became more depressed than I had ever been before. Towards the end of the semester, my mom ordered me to call after weeks of ignoring her. During that phone call, I told her that I wanted to kill myself. Horrified, she said that they could afford to send me to therapy, I said no, it would be too much of a hassle and it would get to be too expensive. She was relieved and thus the matter was settled and never spoken of again.

So today, I sit in my crowded bedroom in my decaying house (yes, there are rats now) and try and write a story, a true story, about how running in the rich part of town made me sad. So often I am desperately seeking a new lede, some way to ease into the story of my life, so I come up with the flimsiest ones imaginable as opposed to just starting from the beginning. I’m no one I tell myself, so why bother in the first place? No one will read it anyway. But so often, I’m met with the same dull idea that I have a story worth telling. The cynic in me is so embarrassed to want to explain away my life that it has to invent a dialogue with no one to justify wanting to tell an over told story. The poet in me wants to make something beautiful out of my life, and will find any excuse to do so in the most meaningless of events. The realist is here with you trying to make sense of these two voices.

I am obsessed with artifice. Look anywhere in my life and you’ll see it. I’m a theater performance major. I sit at home alone and watch movies that very few people like to gage some sensationalist position on. I go running by major streets hoping that someone, anyone from my past will see me and say hello. I run to the park I took my prom pictures at for the hope that some ounce of high school happiness will be absorbed back into myself, so that I can pretend I didn’t lose all my friends from those years by being selfish. I run further into the hills because deep down I know it might lead to something worth writing about. Only to now finally realize there wasn’t much of a story there to begin with. There, or anywhere.

Self pitying is probably what most people would call this. I’ll probably call it that too. Maybe it’s a cry for help. Maybe. Or maybe it’s a desperate plea for attention from an empty audience, because the author thinks that’s most poetic of all.