Old

Screams and fire. A blinding heat that soothed the icy blood. Through all of it, a cackling laugh that was barely recognizable. Crackling wood and snapping stone punctuated the charnel house that filled the world, as the Pack hunted for fresh meat.

We’ll fight ’till we drop.

The bumper sticker sat proudly on the bumper of the car across the street, it’s bright yellow lettering glowing against the deep purple background. The car looked brand new, daring the viewer to believe that it had even been driven off the lot. The silver chrome glittered brightly in the shining sun, hurting Logan “Sparks” Serminski’s good eye. He took a sip from his beer as he sat in his chair, waiting for the coals to heat. The sounds of the summer filtered through the haze of his cloudy mind: children playing in the yard, his cousins chatting about work, his wife rushing about with drinks and small talk. Even his brother was here, swallowing his elitist pride and deigning to allow himself to be seen with his youngest sibling.

He opened his eyes.

At first, there was too much. Too much sound, light, movement — his senses were bombarded from every angle. The pain was immense, rippling through his body like a wave, tickling every nerve ending like sharp tacks. Slowly, the tidal wave receded, leaving him crushed and bruised, as shapes began to emerge. Dancing forms waved in front of him like flames, a harsh hissing skittering through him like flies. Gradually, he began to discern the frightful demons that cackled and roared about him, tongues of flame flipping in and out of their mouths like silverfish, their black claws clacking and clattering around him in the air.

He was dead. He was in Hell.

Something was wrong.

Nicholas K. Linkletter III, ‘Slick Nick’ to his friends and Mr. Linkletter to everyone else, had started slurring his speech five minutes into the board meeting. Then he put his head in his hands, muttering something about smelling lemon tea, and collapsed on the desk. His fellow board-members quickly turned him over, loosening his tie, and called the ambulance. Mrs. Jennings had checked his pulse and tried to administer CPR — a sensation that Nicholas found quite odd, as Mrs. Jennings was an avid smoker. The air tasted foul to his tongue, and he knew he should be coughing.

The medics arrived in only five minutes, having been out on another call. They took over for Mrs. Jennings, feeding a tube down his throat, and forcing air into his lungs with a blue plastic oval. This was much less comfortable at first for Nicholas, but his lungs were breathing cleaner now, not filled with leftover smoke that had settled in Mrs. Jennings’ lungs. He felt the sharp stabbing pain from a needle in his arm, and his body was lifted into the air by two strong arms, and onto a metal surface that clattered under his weight.

The fading sunlight seeped into the cell, past jagged iron grating that had long since turned reddish brown from rust. The birdsong of twilight began to dwindle, joining the sun in slowly sliding away from the grim event that was about to occur. Through the grating, Mary Harker watched as the random passers-by slowly faded from sight, returning to their cozy homes, loving families, and warm meals.

Mary turned from the window to her cell. Stone walls with an iron door was all that separated her from the world, but it was enough. There was little light, and only a small rat-hole in the corner that had long since been vacated. Even the rats would not stay in this cell for long — the stench of the dead reached all the way from the gallows. Mary nudged the small plate of bread that the jailer had given her. Perhaps it was Christian courtesy, or maybe some cruel joke, but the jailer had placed a small runny yellow glob of butter on the bread. She watched as the slimy fat slid its way down the stale wheat before she turned away. She wasn’t hungry at the moment.

The Monarch detected a charming personality hidden underneath his ragged clothes…~ Filipino Folk Tale

Many years ago, in the old days of the land of Dup, when the sun was as fresh and new as a spring daffodil, and rainbow fish swam through creamy rivers, and the skies were filled with birds of all sizes and shapes; when the land was so rich as only an hour of work was enough to grow a crop of rice so pure as to be gold; when no woman was foul of skin, or wore hair lighter than purest midnight, and when no man was feeble, simple, or unable to support his family, and when no child would ever dream of dishonoring his filial duties; Here, in the old days of the land of Dup, came Young Keh.

Keh was a poor orphan, having lost his parents to a vicious troll that was later slain by a noble hero. The poor child had no roof save the sky, no floor but the grass, and no walls but the trees. He wore no fine clothing, but only rags he had found on the ground. He had no food, but only the nuts and berries that he could find and the fish he could catch.

Of course, so bountiful was the land that Keh ate better than many kings of today, and so prosperous were the people that even the rags he wore would put many kings of today to shame, but he was a poor orphan all the same.

CW: Casual discussion of catastrophe and a callous disregard for victims of tragedy.

Some men just want to watch the world burn. ~ Alfred Pennyworth

Excerpt from the Autobiography of William Forthman, Chapter VI — My Years as a Critic.

My first taste of the bouquet of human suffering occurred with the Columbine shootings on the 20th of April, 1999. A simple black and white photo from the security cameras that displayed two youths with dead eyes exploring the human condition. Something in the pose of the child on the right, leg extended and arm bent, reminded me of a dancer poised to pirouette.

I was so fascinated by this picture that I started hunting down old photographs of catastrophes. History books were a prime source for me; I found Vietnam and the second World War, I found Cambodia and Apartheid. I poured over photos and recordings with a glee that frankly surprised me until I spoke with a sommelier friend of mine. She was explaining the intricacies and bouquets of the different grapes when I realized I was becoming a Connoisseur of Human Suffering.

A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men. ~ Willy Wonka

Wilberforse Heinrich Lampozza Mondavi was born on May 23rd, 2020, in London, England. Reportedly, he did not cry nor laugh much as a child, though his nannies and doctors and teachers all reported an apparent interest in everything.

He did not speak until he was five, long after most children had uttered their first words, and reportedly his first word was ‘Schadenfreude,’ the German word for pleasure felt at another’s pain. This was considered doubly odd, for Wilberforse had never been given access to any German nannies, teachers, or media of any kind.

The Monarch detected a charming personality hidden underneath his ragged clothes…~ Filipino Folk Tale

And so it came to pass, that in the old land of Dup, children, when the sun was fresh as a new daffodil, and the fish swam like birds through the creamy rivers, and the skies were filled with feathered beasts of all colors and sizes and shapes; when the land was so giving as to require only an hour of work a day for a farm to receive a crop of rice so pure as to be gold; when no woman was foul of skin, or wore hair lighter than purest midnight, and when no man was feeble, simple, or unable to support his family, and when no child would ever dream of dishonoring his filial duties; Here, in old Dup came Young Keh.

Keh was a poor child, having lost his parents to a vicious troll not one summer before, and had wandered across Dup, searching for a family ever since. He was a kind boy, and fair of face, but his clothing ragged from poverty, and he had nothing with which to buy food. His hunger was satiated only on the kindness of strangers, and it seemed to Keh that whenever a young knight or lost girl would offer him but a scrap of food, some fairy or spirit would appear to bless the knight or girl with riches beyond Keh’s dreams for their kindness and charity. He was glad he could help bring fortune to so many, but sometimes, in the dark of the night when his stomache ached, he wished the fairies and spirits would give him just a small piece of fortune too.

I first found the ‘Glass-Half-Question Joke’ in as a child, in Gary Larson’s The Far Side. At its simplest, the joke was generally structured in threes. First the optimist, then the pessimist, then a third classification that was the punchline. Some had four or five, each punchline building on the last. I had collected one or two of these through college that I had found quite funny, and then just started writing them down whenever I found them. These are the only ones that stuck around, and so I’ve posted them here.

NOTE: As an experiment, many years ago, I decided to do some free associative writing. Words that connected in my brain were written down without filter. This worked relatively well for the beginning, but soon the surreal disjointed words shifted into poetic expression. That wasn’t the point of the exercise, and nowadays it does little more than underscore how depressed I actually was. Instead of rubbing our noses in depressive self-expression, I edited that section out and combined two attempts into one.

Ask my Know. He were no cigarette.

A start. Beginning at the crest of the flowing river starts a rolling wave through green grass and brown bark framing the picture of space travel. Hopping through lobster bisque jumps green and smiling while running, fleeing, terrified of black shadows that creep from home. Dark eyes of glowing red coals flicker, dying in the fireplace with a smoky smell of tobbacco and harsh sandpaper on the throat. A tricking water flow lands, turning stone into worth and value.