Tag Archives: death

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On Speaking With Ghosts

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Why would I want to talk to the dead? What could we possibly have to say to each other that would be of any interest?

“So I tried out this new pizza place the other day….”

“I haven’t eaten anything in 25 years. Way to rub it in.”

“Oh sorry. Let’s talk about you, then. What’ve you been up to?”

“Oh you know, not much. Just kind of floating around, rattling chains, moaning spookily, regretting having died with unfinished business, the usual. It’s been pretty lonely, really, it’s hard to get out when your physical manifestation is tethered to the spot you died.”

“That’s cool,” I’ll say, meaning the exact opposite. “Well, it’s been fun, but I gotta go.”

“Really? You just got here. What do you have to do?”

I don’t have to do anything, I’m just sick of talking to this boring dead guy. I can’t say that, though. I’m a sensitive guy and I don’t want to hurt his feelings. So I make something human up and hope he doesn’t remember enough about being alive to realize what I’m saying makes no sense: “I have to pee. You know how it is. Damn these bodies, always with their physical needs and stuff. You’re lucky, really. Anyway, I’ll see you later.”

“No you won’t because I’m an INVISIBLE GHOST.”

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SHAME

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I wrote this story for Machine of Death, Volume II, a collection of short stories about, basically, a machine that can predict how (but not when) you’re going to die. Unfortunately, they had almost 2000 submissions for 30 possible slots, and this one didn’t get in. I’ve read some the other rejected submissions people have posted and it seems I’m in good company, so I can’t wait to see the stories that actually made the cut.

“Alright,” the group leader said, “Now, to get to know each other a little better, let’s play some icebreakers.”

I groaned inwardly, and several of the other counselors groaned outwardly. I don’t know why we had to play the same stupid games as the campers. For that matter, I’m not sure why we even made the campers play them at all. It’s beyond me exactly how going around the room pairing our names with an adjective (He’s Tim, and he’s Tall. She’s Betty, and she’s Beautiful. That’s Sam, and he’s Smart. I’m Henry and I Hate this game) is supposed to help people connect to each other besides uniting under the belief that the counselors are idiots.

Of course, I had more of a reason to hate these kinds of games. Without fail, they always ended up with the death card guessing game. Ghoulish enough in its own right, of course, but even worse for me because it meant that another group of people was about to find out what my card said, and I was going to have to go through the same embarrassment all over again.

Most of the cards were fairly predictable. A handful of car accidents, a cancer, even an old age. I had a feeling that the poor guy whose card said “Heroin Overdose” (Mike, who claimed to be Musical) wouldn’t be here long. There were only three of us (me, Terrific Tina and poor little Xenophobic Xavier) left by the time my card was drawn. The group leader stared at it for a few seconds, as if he couldn’t believe it was real. Finally, he wordlessly turned the card around.

“Seriously?” a woman asked (Susan, who is Single. That one was a little desperate, if you ask me, but what can you expect from someone doomed to die of STARVATION?).

“Dying of shame?” another giggled (Francine, who is not as Funny as she thinks, and will die of a HEART ATTACK, probably caused when someone finally gets sick of her and pulls a gun on her).

I began to experience the familiar feeling that, apparently, would eventually kill me. My eyes sank and my face turned red.

“Is it yours, Henry?” Rob (who is Rambunctious, and will die in a CAR ACCIDENT) guessed.

I nodded slowly.

It’s amazing how big of an impact these little cards can have on your life, even besides the fact that they tell you how you’re going to die. Five years ago, when the machines had first come out, I was running for Senator, and doing well. All the polls predicted I was going to win by a landslide. Then my opponent, Jack Yarborough, made a huge public spectacle about getting his prediction, which turned out to be OLD AGE. I had to do it too, of course, and publicly. The machines were still new enough that people hadn’t realized quite yet that almost nobody got old age, and so I had just assumed that’d be my result too.

Every major news outlet in the area was there, waiting for the card to print. I stuck my finger in the hole and felt the prick that would change my life. Smiling, I waved the bloody finger at the camera as if to prove it really was my prediction I was about to receive. Three seconds later, a small click announced the fact that the card had printed. Wiping my finger on my handkerchief, I reached for the card. Despite my calm exterior, I was terrified. Everyone claims to want to know, but when it comes down to the moment you first look at your card, you realize you don’t. Once you know how you’re going to die, you can never go back. But by that point it’s too late. And as soon as I looked at the card, I knew it was too late for me, too. I knew that I would never be senator. Smiling, I turned it around and showed the cameras the five big block letters on the other side of the card: SHAME.

Jack, or should I say “Senator Yarborough,” won by a 90% margin that November. The worst part was, later on I found out he had gotten his prediction privately beforehand to make sure it was a “good” one. I always knew that guy was a bastard.

Everyone had seen my prediction, or at least heard about it at some point during the next thousand times it was mentioned on the news or in Jack’s smear campaigns. Having to walk down the street with people recognizing you as the wannabe senator who would die of shame was terrible. It was even, if I may say it, shameful. I looked online to try to find out if anyone else had ever gotten the same prediction. From what I could gather, I was unique. Though I suppose if anyone else had gotten it, they would have tried to keep it pretty quiet. I know I did after I moved across the country to a place nobody had ever heard of me except for, maybe, a couple of people who’d seen the YouTube video of my death card.

Unfortunately, the machine has proven time and time again that you can’t escape from your death, and in my experience you can’t escape from the stigma of your death, either. Most companies these days require you to submit to a test before employment. After the stink with the military refusing to accept people with a prediction of “gunshot,” the Supreme Court ruled that it wasn’t illegal to discriminate against people based on their cause of death if it’s likely that the death could be caused by the job or have a significant effect on the employer. Few precincts would accept police officers with a prediction of MURDER, X-ray technicians weren’t allowed to die of CANCER, fire departments obviously wouldn’t take you if you were fated to die of FIRE, and good luck getting any sort of manufacturing or construction job if your card read INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENT.

As it turns out, SHAME is vague enough that pretty much any employer could use it as an excuse. And most of them did. In the five years since I’d gotten my prediction, I’d been turned down or let go from more jobs than most people even apply for in their entire lives. Few people want to be associated with someone who is going to do something so terrible in the future that they will die of the shame associated with it. I would certainly never be able to get any kind of high-profile job. The risks would just be too great. I had a hard time understanding, though, how the fact I was going to die of shame meant that I couldn’t wash dishes at a local diner. Did they really expect that I’d die of shame from sending out a plate that I hadn’t cleaned well enough?

My wife had left me not long after I got my prediction (though she claimed that had nothing to do with it), and dating was difficult too, of course. These days, “what’s on your card?” had all but replaced “what’s your sign?” SHAME wasn’t nearly as exciting as a CAR CRASH, SKYDIVING ACCIDENT or even TETANUS, and like everyone else most women I met were afraid that if they associated with me my lethal shame would relate to them somehow.

By this point, I didn’t even know how I was supposed to die from shame. The shame that came as a result of having that prediction had gotten me pretty used to being constantly embarrassed.

I’d applied to be a camp counselor because I’d heard they don’t check your prediction. Officially, that was true, but apparently it was still impossible to avoid everyone finding out what it was. On the way out of the room, the camp director stopped poor Mike and started talking to him with a very apologetic look on his face. I was afraid he’d stop to “have a chat” with me too, so I waited until he was done.

“Hello, Henry,” he said after he was done, “Need something?”

“No sir,” I said. I left the room with a huge, goofy smile on my face.

The following few weeks were the most enjoyable time I’d had in my life for quite some time. Even though we inevitably played that damned icebreaker, the kids were young enough not to care. Most of them didn’t even know what “shame” really was. When I explained to them that it meant being embarrassed, they just laughed and didn’t understand how that could kill someone.

In short, things seemed to be going pretty well for me for once, until one day the camp director called me into his office.

“Take a seat,” he said, visibly uncomfortable. I’d never seen him like this before.

“What is it, sir?” I asked, sitting.

“Well,” he began, “Yesterday I got a troubling call from a parent of one of our campers.”

My heart immediately sank. I could tell by the tone of his voice that this wasn’t going to be good news, and I had a pretty good idea what the problem was.

“It seems that in one of the letters a camper wrote back home, they told their parent about the prediction guessing game, and apparently mentioned your prediction.”

Of course. My eyes began to lower as the familiar feeling took over.

“When they called, the parents brought up a…uh, good point,” he said. “You’re going to die of shame. Shame isn’t normally that big a deal. Lots of people feel ashamed all the time, so it would have to be something pretty terrible for someone to die of it…” he trailed off.

By this point, I wasn’t feeling shame, only anger. This was the worst rejection I’d had yet. “Are you accusing me of molesting campers?”

“No! No! Of course not!” he said, putting on his best “how-could-you-think-that” face. “It’s just that, well, these parents are a little concerned. I of course didn’t think that myself, but parents, you know how parents can be,” he chuckled. “If this gets out, they might not want to send their kids here.”

“What if I refuse to quit?”

“I would hope you’d be more reasonable than that,” he said, furrowing his brow. “But if not, we’ve been going over the budget the past few days. Camp enrollment for this year is quite a bit below what it was last year. It turns out we won’t need as many counselors this year, and so…” he shrugged.

It was a lie, and he knew I knew it was a lie. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much I could do about it.

He sighed. “I’m sorry, Henry, I really am, but there’s nothing I can do. Like I said, enrollment’s down as it is, if people start worrying about our counselors, too…” he shrugged helplessly. “I  suggest you start packing. The van will take you back to town in a few days.” He started walking towards the door.

“Sir?” I said, “Can I ask you a question?”

He stopped, and turned his head to face me. “What?”

“What does your card say?”

He paused, thinking, then his face hardened. “That’s none of your business,” he said, turning back around and heading out the door.

On my way back, I realized he was wrong, and that I and everyone I know had been wrong this whole time. There wasn’t going to be one event so shameful that I couldn’t survive it. It was the small, constant indignities that piled up. The burden of having to deal with my prediction was going to wear me down and eventually kill me.

I was so lost in thought that I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going. Looking down, I realized I had just stepped in a pile of dog crap. And everyone else in the bunkhouse was going to smell it while I packed to go home. How embarrassing.

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STAMPEDE

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I wrote this story for Machine of Death, Volume II, a collection of short stories about, basically, a machine that can predict how (but not when) you’re going to die. Unfortunately, they had almost 2000 submissions for 30 possible slots, and this one didn’t get in. I’ve read some the other rejected submissions people have posted and it seems I’m in good company, so I can’t wait to see the stories that actually made the cut.

Sal Barker rode into town looking for the notorious outlaw Joshua Burke. Stepping into Blind Willie’s saloon he was amazed. Most days, there were only a handful of windswept and dirty men sitting at the bar, but today the room was packed with respectable-looking people, and there were even some women in the crowd.

“What’s goin’ on here?” Sal asked.

“Blind Willie’s bought a crazy new invention,” someone in the crowd told him. “Just got it in from San Francisco last week.”

“New invention?” Sal sneered, “All these people in here for some kinda slot machine?”

“It ain’t no slot machine,” Blind Willie said, hobbling towards Sal and waving his cane in the air, “It tells ya how you’ll die.”

“That so?” Sal asked, “How you gonna die then, Blind Willie?”

“Cordin’ to this machine, a ‘STAMPEDE,'” Willie said, holding out a small piece of tape with the word printed on it.

“Hell of a way to go,” Sal said, patting Willie in the back in mock sympathy, “Had a cousin got caught in a stampede, nothin’ left of him at the end but a stain on the ground. Anyone in here seen that bastard Josh Burke?”

“He was just here,” Willie said, “Even tried out the machine hisself. You oughta give it a try too, Sal.”

The crowd murmured in agreement. Sal was almost a legend around these parts, and not necessarily in a good way. Quite a few people in the room wanted to know how he’d die for reasons besides idle curiosity.

“Sounds like fun,” Sal said, “But right now I gotta find Burke. He say where he was headed?”

“What’sa matter?” a voice from the back of the room shouted, “You yeller?”

The room got quiet. Sal slowly turned around, searching for the man who’d dared insult him. The crowd parted to reveal an obviously drunk man sitting on a bar stool. The drunk’s red face turned white as he realized he’d just done something very stupid.

“Nobody calls me yeller,” Sal said, stepping forward.

“Give ‘im a break, Sal,” someone in the crowd murmured, “He’s from out of state, he don’t know you.”

But Sal’s target wasn’t the man at all. He stepped past the drunk up to the machine that had attracted so much attention. It was an ugly thing, made of metal, with gears sticking out every which way and a single lever, like a slot machine.

“How’s it work?” he asked, staring at it suspiciously.

“Put a coin in the slot, then put your finger in the hole and pull the lever,” Blind Willie said, stepping up behind him and pointing to each part with his cane. “Machine takes a bit of blood, then spits out a piece of paper that tells you how you’re going to die.”

“How’s it know?” Sal asked.

Willie just shrugged. “Alls I know is, it works. The man who invented it got ‘BROKEN NECK’ and what do you know, next month he falls off a cliff.”

“I hear he jumped,” someone said. “Couldn’t bear to face what he brought into the world. Thought it was possessed by the devil or some such nonsense.”

Sal dropped a coin in the slot and stuck his finger in the small hole. As he pulled the lever with his other hand, he felt a small jab from the needle and the gears began to turn. The whole saloon stood in silence as the machine clanked and sputtered for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, it ground to a noisy halt and a small piece of paper slid out of a slot in the front.

Sal tore off the slip and stared at it wordlessly.

It read “OLD AGE.”

———

A few months after Sal got his prediction, Sheriff Williams visited him to offer him a job.

“I’ll tell ya the same thing I told ya years ago,” Sal said, “Go piss up a pole.”

“Now look,” Williams said, “Things are different now than they were back then. A gunslinger like you can’t die of old age, you know better’n I do that folks’ve been treatin’ you different ever since you got that prediction.”

Sal sighed. “I’ve never run away from a fight in my life, but when people think you’re gonna die of old age, they assume that it means you’re a coward. Even if ya stand and fight, you’re still a coward. You know you’re not gonna die, so even when you’re facing’ a loaded gun, you’re not taking any risk. It’s like killin’ a man with his back turned to you.”

“I know you ain’t a coward,” the sheriff said, “And that’s why I’m here. There ain’t many men as good with a gun as you are, even less who are guaranteed to walk away from a fight alive.”

“That machine don’t mean anything,” Sal said. “It’s just a toy made by some mad scientist out in California.”

“That ain’t true, Sal, and you know it,” the sheriff said, shaking his head. “You’ve seen the newspapers. Everyone who’s died after usin’ it, it’s been right. Times are changin’. First the railroads, now the death machine. The days of the wild and free gunslinger are comin’ to an end. Sure, everyone knew that kind of life was dangerous, but having to stare at that strip of paper telling you you’re going to get shot and die? Takes a real strong man to keep doin’ it, and ain’t many up to it. Lots of folks are settling down to honest jobs.”

Sal sighed. Williams was right, of course. There wasn’t a lot of work for him even before he stuck his finger in that damned machine, and his fame was all but gone now that everyone thought he was a sham.

“It’s either this or wrangling cattle ’til that prediction comes true,” Williams said, getting up to leave.

“What the hell,” Sal said, “I’ll do it. At least this way I still get to shoot people.” He sighed. “Tell me one thing though, sheriff, what’s yours say?”

Williams smiled.”I never got a prediction myself,” he said, “Guess I’m just too scared to find out.”

———

“Joshua Burke,” Sal shouted at the outlaw, “You are hereby under arrest for two counts of bank robbery, three counts of horse theft and six counts of murder. Drop your weapons or we’ll shoot!”

“Come and get me, geezer!” Burke cackled. Sal winced. Apparently Burke had heard what his prediction was, too. The outlaw opened fire on the lawmen.

Sal dove into an alley and Williams dropped behind a pile of barrels as Burke’s shots rang out around them.

“Alright,” the sheriff said, “On the count of three.”

Sal shook his head. “You don’t know if he’ll kill you, sheriff. I know I’ll be OK, let me handle this.”

Williams looked at him gravely, and nodded.

Sal jumped out from the alleyway and fired in Burke’s direction. At the same moment, the outlaw finished reloading and started shooting in his direction again. Sal felt a fiery, stinging pain in his leg that knocked him to the ground. Gritting his teeth, he peered through the smoke, noticing Burke had stopped firing too. Gripping his bleeding leg, Sal stood up and limped over to where Burke had been standing.

The outlaw was sitting in a pile of his own blood, a glazed look on his eyes. As Sal reached him, he looked up and grinned wryly.

“Didn’t think you had it in you, old man,” he said, coughing blood. He reached into his coat and took out a scrap of paper. He passed it to Sal, closed his eyes, and was still.

The paper read “GUNSHOT.”

“You did it!” Sheriff Williams said, coming up behind Sal and slapping him on the back. “After all this time, you finally put him down like the dog he is.”

Sal nodded slowly, stuffing the paper into his pocket. The sheriff didn’t notice, as he’d just looked down and seen Sal’s wounded leg.

“That don’t look too good,” he said, “We better get you to a doctor.”

A few minutes later, Sal was sitting up on the doctor’s table, staring at the bullet that the doctor had just pulled from his leg.

“You were lucky,” the doctor said as he bandaged the wound, “The bullet came real close to hitting a major artery. You would’ve bled to death. As it is, you might end up with a limp, but you’ll live.”

But Sal already knew that.

Horror/Supernatural

The Museum of Improbable Things

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The curator walked the new security guard through the premises. “Have you visited the Museum of Improbable Things before?” he asked.

The guard shook his head.

“Well,” the curator said, smiling, “I suppose I should take you on a quick tour through some of the exhibits, so you can get an idea what it is you’re protecting. I would recommend you come back some time during normal visiting hours to get the full experience, though. It’s all very fascinating.”

He stopped in front of a case containing a coin. “That,” he said, “As far as anyone can tell, is a regular quarter. It’s not weighted, not double-sided, nothing like that. The strange thing about it is, when you flip it, it always lands on whatever side you want it to land on.”

The guard grunted.

“Moving along,” the curator said, “Next up we have one of my favorite exhibits.” Inside the case was a copy of Led Zeppelin’s fourth album. “Playing it forward, it sounds like it should, but if you play ‘Stairway to Heaven’ backwards…”

“Let me guess,” the security guard said, “Satanic messages?”

The curator shook his head with a smile. “Not at all. If you play it backwards, you can very clearly hear ‘Glory to God in the highest, for God is great.'”

The guard stared at him.

“We don’t have enough time right now,” the curator whined, “But if you’d come back during normal visiting hours you could, of course, see the demonstration.”

“Continuing,” he said, walking to the next exhibit, “This is a VHS of ‘Return of the Jedi.’ The interesting thing about it, is that the ending is not the same. In this version, Luke turns to the Dark Side and joins Darth Vader, they kill the Emperor and take over the galaxy.”

“Never seen Star Wars,” the guard said, “But lemme ask you something, how do you know this, or that album, aren’t fakes?”

“They could be fakes,” the curator said, “They could be, that’s true. But if they’re fakes, the quality is incredible. The actors in the ending of this Star Wars, they look and sound exactly like the real actors. Of course, everyone involved with the film denies that anything like this was ever filmed, but…” the curator shrugged.

“So what the hell is it, then?” the guard asked.

The curator brightened. “That’s a very good question. Nobody really knows where the things in the museum originally came from. But it certainly shows that we live in a much stranger world than anyone thinks, eh?”

“Guess so,” the guard said.

Slumping his shoulders and returning to his “official” mode, the curator continued on. “All the exhibits in that part of the museum are pretty harmless,” he said, “Next up, in this section, we have things that are a little more dangerous.” He stopped in front of a case containing a hardbound book called Able Elba.

“What’s so dangerous about a book?” the guard asked.

“My friend,” the curator said, “Books are the most dangerous things of all! Books have resulted in more upheaval and societal change than…” catching the guard’s stony glare, he cleared his throat and changed the subject. “This particular book was written by a severely mentally disabled woman. According to her caretakers, the woman is barely even literate. Apparently though, one day she just sat down and wrote this book in twelve hours straight. The remarkable thing about it, is that it’s written entirely as a palindrome. A palindrome is a word or sentence that reads the same backwards as forwards…”

“I know what a palindrome is,” the guards said. “That’s definitely improbable, but why’s it dangerous?”

“Well,” the curator said, “Most people, after they read the book, they find themselves unable to speak in anything but palindromes. Apparently for the rest of their life.”

The guard raised an eyebrow in disbelief.

“This is all well-documented,” the curator said defensively, “The book actually sold fairly well at first, what with its ‘inspirational’ back story and all. The publisher stopped printing it once the reports started coming in, though. It got banned from schools and libraries. In fact, it got so bad that the Department of Defense bought up as many copies as they could, burned them, and arrested the woman and her caretakers as threats to national security. You can look all this up, it was in the news.”

“I’ll have to do that,” the guard said.

They walked to the next exhibit.

“This,” the curator said somberly, “Is a camera that takes a picture of how you’ll look when you die.” He lifted what looked like a regular Polaroid camera out of the case and pointed it at the guard. “Say cheese!”

“Don’t.” the guard said, putting his hand in front of the lens.

“What’s the matter?” laughed the curator, “Afraid to know?” He glanced at his watch. “Damn it, I’ve got a dinner with the Board of Trustees across town in half an hour, I’ll have to show you the rest of the exhibits later. That OK?”

“Sure,” the guard said.

“Alright,” the curator said. “Well I’ll see you later. Don’t touch anything, I know how interested you are in this stuff!” he slapped the guard on the shoulder and dropped the camera rather unceremoniously into the case before running out the door.

The camera’s circuitry must have been pretty damaged. The bump from hitting the bottom of the case caused it to take a picture, nearly blinding the guard with its flash. After blinking for a few seconds and regaining his sight, he gingerly reached into the case and took the picture out of the camera’s slot. He shook the photo a bit as it slowly came into focus.

The photo showed him lying on the floor of the museum in a puddle of blood.

He lifted his eyes from the picture and stared into the depths of the museum where the rest of the “dangerous” exhibits lay, suddenly wishing he’d listened to more of what the curator had said.

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Mr. Johnson

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Mr. Johnson had been coming to our restaurant for years. Every time he came in, he would order the same meal: grilled chicken with a side of broccoli, a baked potato (butter only) and a coffee. After he finished eating and the plates were cleared away, he would take out his domino set. Occasionally he would come in to eat with someone else and they would play with him. Sometimes one of us would sit down to play a round or two. Often, he simply played by himself. Whatever the case, he frequently stayed for at least an hour after he was done eating, and sometimes even longer. He would sip his coffee, politely asking for refills when necessary.

Newer employees were sometimes annoyed by him. “Why is that guy just sitting there playing dominoes?” they fumed. “He’s already eaten and paid for his meal, he’s just taking up a table that some other paying customer could use.”

“That’s Mr. Johnson,” we’d tell them. “Who the hell are you? He’s been a part of this restaraunt longer than you have.”

The restaraunt closed at 10 P.M. Mr Johnson knew that we were trying to go home. Although nobody had ever asked him to leave, he always packed up his dominoes and left as soon as the clock struck 10 if he happened to still be around at that time. Not to mention, he always tipped well.

Nobody knew anything about him. He knew several of us by name, and we would often sit and talk to him, but he never talked about himself or his life. Most people thought he was a lonely widower, his children (if any) grown and long gone. There were, of course, much more wild rumors as well. Some claimed that he was a former Nazi, or a former spy, or even a current spy. One wild-eyed fry cook floated the hypothesis that Mr. Johnson was a highly advanced domino-playing robot.

A busboy tailed Mr. Johnson home one day to see where he lived. The next day a crowd gathered around him to hear the details of Mr. Johnson’s home life.

“Where did he live? What was it like?” they asked him.

“It was just a regular house,” he said, shrugging.

Mr. Johnson didn’t come in every day, so it took a few weeks before we realized he hadn’t been in for quite some time. There was a sense of quiet panic as we all tried to figure out what had happened to our favorite customer.

“It had to happen eventually,” the conspiracy theorists said, “His cover got blown, the CIA’s taken him in for questioning.”

Henrietta Simmons discovered the answer as she was paging through the newspaper on her break. Henrietta was the type of person who always read the obituaries. She said it made her feel better about herself.

“Come quick!” she called, “Mr. Johnson is dead!”

Stuart Johnson died Tuesday. He was 89.
He died at the Angel of Mercy Hospital of respiratory failure.
Mr. Johnson served in the Army during World War II, and entered the paper industry after returning. Mr. Jonhson was an avid domino player (several of us chuckled as we read that) and dog breeder.
He is survived by three children and five grandchildren. Services will be held privately.

We passed around the newspaper in silence. After all these years, we finally had gotten a glimpse into the life of Mr. Johnson, and now it was too late. Many were secretly disappointed, as it turned out that his life was not nearly as exciting as they had imagined. Mr. Johnson was just a regular person.

We cut out the obituary, had it framed, and hung it up on the wall. It’s still there to this day.

All Too True

This is not about Kurt Cobain (but it can be if you’d like)

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Once, an angel accidentally fell out of heaven and landed on the Earth. As anyone who’s ever tried can tell you, it’s very hard to get to heaven from the Earth, so for the time being, the angel decided to try to blend in. It saw this as an opportunity to study up-close the creatures that it had loved so much from afar.

Unfortunately, it soon found that humans were best loved from a distance. To an eternal being, it is easy to wave aside the slaughter of millions of unimportant mortals and focus on the incredible creations of beauty from the few, as well as the impressive achievements of the race as a whole. Up-close, however, their pettiness, close-mindedness and selfishness was disgusting to a creature made of pure love.

Doubly unfortunately, the angel soon found that as distanced as it was  from the source of all life, it needed to find its energy elsewhere, namely in food. Having never attended university, or indeed any school at all, the angel had no marketable skills, and its physical form was much too frail for manual labor. It did, however, have one remarkable talent. It could sing songs the likes of which the human mind could barely conceive. Up until recently, the angel had lived in the midst of the divine, and could, with its voice, conjure scenes of such sweetness and light that even the most cynical couldn’t help but listen.

Every time it sang, however, it grew more and more depressed, as it reminded itself of the beauty it would never experience again. It tried to cope with its depression in the same way humans do. It tried drugs (both pharmaceutical and otherwise), sex, TV, even religion. Nothing could soothe the soul of the poor creature. Although great damage had already been done, it adopted the human phrase “better late than never,” and quit singing to become a dishwasher. People who had heard it sing tracked it down and begged it to come back.

“You must sing for us!” they shouted, “Your gift is too good not to share! Your songs lift us up and bring us visions of a greater world than this one! Your songs make everyone better for having heard them!”

Although jaded, its love for humanity was still too great to refuse their demands, especially with the knowledge that its songs were making them better. The years went on and the angel’s light darkened, until eventually one day, it didn’t appear to sing at its appointed time. They found it in its bedroom, a bullet hole in its head and a gun in its hand.

And the people wept. Not for the angel, of course, but for themselves because now they wouldn’t be able to hear its songs.

Horror/Supernatural, Victoria Falls

The Suicide Tree

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Victoria Falls being the home of so many ghost stories, it stands to reason that its graveyard is an immensely popular tourist attraction. Strangely enough, its most famous occupant isn’t buried here, but is actually a tree! The so-called “Suicide Tree” stands almost in the exact center of the graveyard, a nearby headstone placed almost perfectly to allow someone to climb on it to tie a rope around the tree to hang themselves with. Local legend states that this is exactly what a young widow did on hearing the news that her husband had been killed in World War I.

It’s said that when you stand under the tree’s branches at night, you can hear the poor widow’s sobbing. However, after five teenagers were found dead, hung from the tree the morning after a full moon, the Victoria Falls Police decided to place an officer near the tree at night to dissuade any other potential suicides or vandalism, and do not allow anyone to approach it. They of course deny that you can hear sobbing under the tree. If you ask almost any of the officers though, most will admit that they’ve been too scared to try it for themselves!

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Danse Macabre

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Every night, the crowd packs the theater to see Umberto Rosilini’s masterpiece, Grief. The chorus begins softly, a dark Latin requiem flowing over the crowd, hushing them and drawing their attention to the stage. The dancer slowly enters. She is not beautiful, as one might expect, or at least not in the way a human being is normally beautiful. Of course, she moves with grace, her body is perfectly fit, and her face is exquisite, but none of that mattered. The beauty comes from the fact that this opera was written for her, and only for her. She was made for this performance — only someone who has never felt grief can give it a truthful depiction in art.

First, of course, comes the Denial act. The chorus swells as she drifts in, arms outstretched, dancing with what seems to be an invisible partner, as if she were a widow refusing to believe her lover could possibly be gone. This was everyone’s least favorite act. They cherish the emotional intensity of the later acts, and shift uncomfortably in their seats during the Denial. They have no way of knowing that this is the most authentic stage for the dancer, that this is the closest to the way she feels, or could ever feel. The opera is all she lives for. The other stages are all a testament to her skill as an artist, displaying emotions she has never felt. But of course, it is this very authenticity that makes them so uncomfortable. To them, it simply seems faked.

Electric guitars cut in as she moves to the Anger act. She screams so shrilly that she would break the windows, were they not reinforced. Thrashing wildly onstage, she moves with an intensity of hatred and pain never seen elsewhere, a living whirlwind of unbridled rage. It is, of course, a lie. She has never felt anything approaching the strength of the anger she displays. The most distressed she has ever been was after the death of her benefactor and the writer of the opera, Umberto Rosilini. It wasn’t due to grief for him, however. Though he had raised her from infancy, there was never any love between them. Rosilini was not a cruel or abusive man, but nobody who knew him could claim he was a warm man either. His passion was directed towards his art, and he raised her to be the same way, seeing in her the perfect star for his masterwork. But after Rosilini’s death, the theater was closed for a number  of weeks. Without her dancing, she was lost and did not know what to do.

Onstage, she moves into the Bargaining act. Falling on her hands and knees, she cries out to God, pleading for a deal, an agreement, something, anything to bring back her beloved. Here, finally, is something she could begin to understand. Though she has never pleaded with God, she has pleaded with a force that, to her, was just as powerful, and just as capable of destroying her life. After Rosilini’s death, she pleaded with his nephew, the inheritor of the theater, to let her keep performing the opera. He is not an artist like his uncle was. He did not understand. He thought it was cruel, to force her to go through the steps of grief on stage when she must be grieving in real life. She pleaded and bargained and threatened and cajoled, and finally he agreed to let the opera continue. And ever since then, she has performed every night with no interruptions. And it was good that she has — the opera is necessary for society to function. A modern Memento Mori, a reminder to all who watched that death will, in the end, not spare them.

She collapses to the floor slowly, sobbing, ushering in the Depression act. When she first began performing at six years old, the opera was universally panned. The critics denounced it as perverse, placing this young child in such close contact with death. As the years went on, though, Rosilini’s dream began to come to fruition. As she grew into a young woman, the beauty of the work became apparent. It quickly became a national sensation, then an internationally acclaimed masterpiece. It has become a right of passage, to bring a young child on the verge of adulthood to see the dance, for them to learn of their own mortality. And now, 80 years later, by the end of a night’s performance, there is never a dry eye in the theater. Her age makes the performance all the more beautiful, the old woman herself a reminder of death.

Rising from the floor, tears drying, she enters the Acceptance act. She begins to freely dance around the stage as in the beginning, only this time her arms hold no one. She isn’t stupid; she knows what death is and what her dance means. She knows that one day she, too, will die. And she knows that even though there is nobody she will grieve for, there was never anybody she would grieve for, and there will be nobody she will ever grieve for, millions will grieve for her when she is gone. It does not bother her or seem strange. We all live different lives and have different concerns. And to her, the dance is all that matters.

Horror/Supernatural

Not How I Remember It (Part 3)

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(If you haven’t read it, part one is here, and part two is here. For best effect, listen to the songs while reading the lyrics. You might get confused about which is the “real” version…)

I’ve had some requests as to the exact contents of the songs off the Beatles album. I’ll put up what I can remember, but I took the CD back to the store so I don’t have the lyric sheet anymore. I’m leaving off “Orange Submarine” and “All You Need is Blood” because the only changes to those songs are obvious in the title. I’m also leaving off “I Am the Walrus” because even though I remember every single word (how could I forget?), nobody ever needs to know what that one says.

Anyway…

There Goes the Sun
There goes the sun, there goes the sun,
and I say it’s all right

Little darling, it’s been a long hot lonely summer
Little darling, it feels like years since it’s been here
There goes the sun, there goes the sun
and I say it’s all right

Little darling, the frowns returning to the faces
Little darling, it seems like years since it’s been here
There goes the sun, there goes the sun
and I say it’s all right

Sun, sun, sun, there it goes…
Sun, sun, sun, there it goes…
Sun, sun, sun, there it goes…
Sun, sun, sun, there it goe…
Sun, sun, sun, there it goes…

Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly freezing
Little darling, it seems like years since it’s been clear
There goes the sun, there goes the sun,
and I say it’s all right
It’s all right

(Don’t) Think For Yourself
I’ve got a word or two
To say about the things that you do
You’re telling all those lies
About the good things that we can have
If we close our eyes

Do what I want you to do
We’ll go where we’re going to
Don’t think for yourself
‘Cause I will be there for you

I left you far behind
The ruins of the life that you had in mind
And though you still can see
I know your mind’s made up
You’re gonna cause more misery

Do what I want you to do
We’ll go where we’re going to
Don’t think for yourself
‘Cause I will be there for you

Although your mind’s opaque
Try thinking less just for both our sakes
The future could be good
And you’ve got time to rectify
All the things that you should

Do what I want you to do
We’ll go where we’re going to
Don’t think for yourself
‘Cause I will be there for you

Do what I want you to do
We’ll go where we’re going to
Don’t think for yourself
‘Cause I will be there for you
Don’t think for yourself
‘Cause I will think for you

Penny Lane
Penny Lane there is a butcher showing photographs
Of every head he’s had the pleasure to have known
And all the people that come and go
Stop and say hello

On the corner is a banker with a motorcar
The little children laugh at him behind his back
But banker never learned how to laugh
And it’s pouring rain…
Very strange

Penny Lane is in my dreams and in your cries
There beneath the black and choking skies
I sit, and meanwhile back

In Penny Lane there’s a prison guard with a billyclub
And in his pocket is a portrait of the Queen.
He likes to keep the prison clean
Running like a machine

Penny Lane is in my dreams and in your cries
Fingers n’ fish baked into pies
In summer, meanwhile back

Behind the shelter in the middle of a roundabout
An ugly girl is selling puppies from a tray
And though she feels as if she’s in a play
She dies today

Penny Lane the butcher serves another customer
We see the banker sitting waiting for a trim
Then the prison guard rushes in
From the pouring rain…
Very strange

Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes
There beneath the black and choking skies
I sit, and meanwhile back
Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes
There beneath the black and choking skies…
Penny Lane.

Sexy Sadie
Sexy Sadie what have you done
You made a meal of everyone
You made a meal of everyone
Sexy Sadie ooh what have you done.

Sexy Sadie you broke the rules
You mixed us up for you to eat
You mixed us up for you to eat
Sexy Sadie oooh you broke the rules.

One sunny day the world was waiting for another
She came along to burn up everyone
Sexy Sadie the greatest of them all.

Sexy Sadie how did you know
The world was waiting just for you
The world was waiting just for you
Sexy Sadie oooh how did you know.

Sexy Sadie you’ll get yours yet
However big you think you are
However big you think you are
Sexy Sadie oooh you’ll get yours yet.

We gave her everything we owned now we serve at her table
As she smiles and eats up everyone
Sexy Sadie she’s the latest and the greatest of them all.

She made a meal of everyone
Sexy Sadie.

However big you think you are
Sexy Sadie.

Horror/Supernatural

History 616

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Excerpt from the journals of Robert Witherstone, archeologist.

July 12th, 1894

We made our first excavations into the structure today. Amazingly, it seems to be a library, stretching on as far as the eye can see. I don’t see how a library of this size could have been lost without any record of its existence, unless it perhaps it is the hidden hall of some ancient Indian tribe. If so, this discovery could be a breakthrough in anthropology, finally giving us a written record of the history of this continent before colonization! I have taken a few volumes back to study and attempt to decode them.

July 12th, 1894 (later)

I have made an amazing discovery — the books are in English! The first one I opened turned out to be a history of the American Revolution. Something’s not quite right about it though. The book claims the war ended at the Siege of Yorktown when George Washington ate General Cornwallis. Perhaps this is a mistranslation from an original, different work written in another language, because this can’t be what the author meant to say.

July 13th, 1894

Read more of the books in the library today. Most of the books on science seem fairly normal, but the fiction is perverse and terrible. Worst of all are the supposed “histories.” I found a volume detailing the colonization of Africa, but rather than referring to the cannibalism practiced by the savages there, it described the Europeans as cannibalizing the Africans they killed! All of this is most unsettling, and I am not sure what to think. I am normally the type of man to laugh at silly superstitions, but the fact that today is Friday the 13th does not help my unease. I will continue to examine the volumes contained here in an attempt to get to the bottom of this.

July 16, 1894

Lord have mercy. I do not know what sort of unholy place we have found, but it has to be destroyed. Today I found a Bible (if, indeed, you can call such profanity a Bible).

The familiar stories were replaced with grotesque and disturbing tales of sadistic violence, culminating in the most awful blasphemy of all. The author of this monstrosity wrote the story of the Lord’s Supper as literal rather than symbolic. Christ order his disciples to literally kill him, drink his blood, and eat him. We have set up a fire in the center of the structure and are burning all the books we can lay hands on. We have also set up explosives to collapse the cave in the morning so that nobody else can stumble on this blighted place.

July 17th, 1894

We collapsed the cave today. Jones was injured in the blast. He is conscious, but his leg is too hurt for him to walk. It is slow going having to carry him.

July 18th, 1894

Returned to the University today. No doubt it is my addled nerves still in shock from the horror I discovered, but something about the students makes me uneasy. I do not like the look in their eyes; it seems alien in some way. While they commonly use strange slang and colloquialisms with which I am not familiar, it recently seems to have gotten even stranger, so much so that I sometimes cannot even tell what they are talking about.

Doubtless I am still in shock from the events of the previous few days and this will pass.

July 19th, 1894

I spoke with Jones’ doctor today. He is a nervous man, continually licking his lips and grimacing. His manner is overbearing, his breath is terrible and his teeth are unpleasant. But I digress. In any case, he told me that Jones’ injuries are much worse than they had appeared at first. Apparently he had a great deal of internal injuries as well. They are not sure if he will pull through.

July 20th, 1894

Jones succumbed to his injuries today. The funeral arrangements are being made.

July 22nd, 1894

Jones’ funeral was today. The preacher was very strange. I’m not quite sure what he meant when he said Jones’ soul was “swallowed up” by the Lord. I did like his point that Jones would be “a part of us forever,” though.

Although there was one good thing. As strange or flippant as it might be to mention, the food at the reception afterwords was fantastic.