Untitled Conversation

"An apology for the devil: It must be remembered that we have heard only one side of the case.  God has written all the books."
-Samuel Butler

And God spake, "I am the Lord, thy God, creator of the Universe, God of Abraham, Isa-”
”Hold on, hold on, wait. I'm sorry. I mean no disrespect, really, I don't. But can we just skip all the pomp and circumstance? I know your little schtick, but it's really unnecessary. Can't we just have a normal conversation without it getting all Biblical? "
God paused for just a moment to allow the firmament to settle. "I apologize. It's a really terrible habit and I've been trying for a few eons now to break it. You know how it is; habits, I mean. The older you get, the harder it is to break them. Well try being eternal some time."
"Ta, mate. Bloody great racket that was, playing death metal on me eardrums. You gotta get with the times. All that King James holier than thou crap, it's old hat. Get yourself a Twitter or something. Update the lingo.  Take a tour of New York City."
"I am everywhere all the time."
"All the noise must get bloody distracting."
"Well... it's not too bad.  Actually, it's a lot quieter now than it has been in centuries.  Nobody really needs me anymore.  They think they do, but most problems are things people can easily solve themselves.  I really just manage to upkeep and let the angels do whatever minor miracles need doing."
"Feeling a bit lonely lately?  I guess that's to be expected.  All those religions down there nowadays, everyone certain they've got it right.  All invoking Jehovah for this, Allah for that, Jesus fucking Christ, oh lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes-Benz?  The wars must be playing hell on your conscience, oh all-loving and all-powerful."
"It's sad really.  I gave mortals free will, conscious, my very image of morality and wisdom, and yet look how some foolish few have squandered my gift.  But there are so many down there, those beautiful masses who innovate, propagate, elevate their communities.  I couldn't be more proud.  This is exactly what I had set out do."
"I s'pose it is.  Cheers on you.  I...ah--ah--choo!"
"God bless you."
"Heh, feeling clever, are you?"
"It's just good manners.  People say it all the time.  You did ask me to, what was it?  Update my lingo?"
"Don't get cheeky with me.  I'm just saying, the whole blessing people after sneezing?  What's up with that anyway?  It's dumb if ya ask me."
"Nobody asked you."
"Silly old superstition.  It's just a sneeze.  You don't bless someone after they burp or fart.  Hell, then the blighter whodunnit need be polite to those around them.  'Excuse me,' he says.  But a sneeze?  'Bless ya.'  Betcha 99% of the morons out there doin' it don't even know why.  Politeness, they think.  They don't even know what they really think is their goddamned souls are gonna fly out their faces.  Like I said, silly superstition.  Like the devil collects souls covered in snot."
"Haha, you make an excellent point.  I guess it is a bit farfetched.  I get enough spam prayers and requests for blessings as is.  I really don't need all these requests to bless human nasal cavities."
"That's the spirit.  Anyway, I digress.  What was I saying?  I don't remember now.  How've you been?"
"So-so.  I've been nostalgic for the good old days.  Not the plagues or the witch hunts or anything like that.  I never really like lording around as God, but I felt I had more of a connection with the people back then.  Like I said, I don't do much in the way of miracles anymore.  No point.  It would just cause more fighting down there so I just stay out of it.  Besides, it would interfere with the free will thing and I don't want to go back on my word."
"Hate being a hypocrite?"
"Well, if you did something that went against your creed, that would just be in character.  But if I were to reverse my stance on something, I'd effectively wipe out all of Creation.  It's a tricky business.  It's not like I haven't thought about putting a stop to the suffering on Earth, the war, the famine, the disease, the death, but in doing so, I'd inadvertently and ironically cause the apocalypse, which just isn't in the cards right now."
"Wait, that's actually coming?"
"Nothing lasts forever.  The sun will expand into a red giant and consume the planet in 4 billion years.  Will humans be around for that?  Who's to say?  It's not my place to prognosticate on such matters.  You'll just have to wait and see.  Do I have a plan?  Is it all random?  It's all a matter of point of view."
"I suppose that's why so many people have stopped believing in you.  Sure, when nobody could explain things, it was easier to blame a deity or three for their lot in life.  But people finally starting to think.  So much can be explained these days that couldn't be before.  And if you don't know it, Google's got the answer.  You're really not much more than a concept anymore, a free radical anachronism who may or may not exist as anything more than idea in the human collective conscious.  Who's to say our conversation is even happening?  The very idea of talking directly to God?  And getting such straightforward answers?  That's ridiculous.  For all we know, this is all just something being read in front of a bloody Creative Writing class as part of an assignment.  We'd never really know."
"I know what you're doing.  Please stop."
"Ha!  Well, you know what they're saying down there?  God is dead.  People don't need you to lay out their morals for them anymore.  It's choice, free will.  The one's who need to put their faith in a higher power are those who can't make moral decisions for themselves.  Every time they do something bad or see some unspeakable horror, they say the devil did.  But you and I, we know the truth.  I don't do anything.  Satan, that's what I was called by the ancient Hebrews, the adversary, the accuser.  All I do is question your actions to make them think and progress.  But all that bad stuff people do?  It isn't me.  You said it yourself: free will.  They do it to themselves.  Great gig I got.  I get to sit up here and laugh."
"Do not invoke my anger, little angel."
"What are you going to do about it?  There I go questioning you again.  You can't do anything to me.  You decreed that I am your adversary.  This is my job.  Unless you want to go against your word, and we both know how that will turn out.  Let's just talk, big guy."
"You're really trying my patience here.  I may restart the universe just so I don't have to deal with you in the next."
"Like you could.  You're nothing more than an outmoded idea, old man.  More people these days invoke me than you.  It's in every swear, every act of vengeance and murder, every time a holiday shopper viciously attacks his fellow man for that sweet deal on an HDTV.  They don't even know that they're doing it, but it's all instinctive.  They're nothing more than animals playing at being more.  Nope, you and I, we're on our way out I think.  Might as well pack it in now."
"Why are you so dead set on convincing me of the folly of my own existence?  What is in it for you?  Certainly, if God does not exist, the devil cannot either."
"I'm a nihilist.  I don't believe that any of this really is, especially you and I.  And I don't think you're nearly as important to the maintenance of the world as you believe.  If you stepped away from it all, who would ever know?  Certainly not either of us.  Certainly not them."
"Maybe you're right.  All of this was getting a bit old anyway.  Maybe I will go away for a while.  Maybe I was never really there at all.  Maybe I am everywhere and all things.  Maybe I am not.  Maybe..."  And just like that, God and the devil just aren't there.

"The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn't exist."
-Charles Baudelaire

Writer's Block is a Serious Disease

I haven't submitted a new post in a while.  There's a reason for this.  I've been rewriting the bible in more modern terms.  Please allow me to share the new Genesis:


Lo, and in the beginning there was naught but a blank sheet of paper and a Writer, a Writer who sat before this loose sheet of empty whiteness with pen in outstretched hand and many wonders in His mind. And He looked before His canvas, bereft of all letter or word or sentence and He knew that He must put pen to pad and write as none had ever written before, lest the paper be empty and the words spell out nothing and the story remain unfulfilled. And He sat and He thought, and He thought and He sat, and for a very long time He stared at the blank white sheet before Him and the Writer wrote nothing down, not even the word nothing, but a void of intention to write but not a word for said void. And as He sat and planned and plotted and meditated upon the nature of the written word and how He could put all of these new ideas to paper could He only find the right way to string them together, the Writer grew petulant with his page of pearly parchment.

The Writer said, "Let there be an end to this infernal task." And upon growing tired of staring at a perpetually barren piece of paper, the Writer stood up and wandered to His television and sat upon His couch, remote control in hand, and meditated upon the nature of cable and how there never seems to be anything of interest to watch. And as He sat there and pondered watching Netflix instead despite knowing that there was nothing any better on see on that, the king of all streaming services, He knew that it was probably best if He should turn off the television set and sit back down before His empty papyrus, pen in hand, or typewriter, or keyboard (perhaps He'd join the rest of the 21st century and finally utilize a word processor) and finally get to work on that story He was meaning to tell. Or not. There were certainly other distractions at hand that could pass by an afternoon, He thought.

The Writer said, "Let there be feast so as to get my creative juices flowing." And so, rising up like a phoenix from his comfortable couch, the Writer walked not towards his pen and pad, but rather towards the kitchen to make within its hallowed chamber a sandwich through which He sought the comforts of a full stomach and through said stomach filled with food, the energy necessary to at long last complete, nay begin that tale of which He hath promised to write so fully but hath yet to truly tell. And upon His sandwich, the Writer drew to Him many a deli meat, both of the ham and the salami, for this was an Italian combo, and it would require both the Genoa and the pepperoni. And of the vegetables, there were a plenty, both the lettuce romaine and the onions red, banana peppers for a bit of spice, and olives. He liked olives, and black olives, neatly sliced were certainly called for here upon this most revered of sandwiches. And all this, the Writer laid out before Him neatly upon a hero roll, with several slices of Swiss cheese and a generous dollop of deli mustard. And the Writer looked upon the sandwich and saw that it was good.

The Writer said, "Let the sandwich be shown to the world before me and all shall take pleasure in my accomplishment." And before taking a bite, He would inform all of His culinary creation. Bringing forth from the depths of his pocket the iPhone of wonders, He snapped a photo of the sandwich for all to behold upon the Instagram. And once the photo was posted to the internet, He looked upon the many likes and mouthwatering comments and the Writer saw that it was good. And there was much rejoicing and the Writer ate His sandwich. And it was delicious.

The Writer said, "Let there be books, comics, internet articles, anything really with words in it that I can read and perhaps gather some inspiration." And before Him was laid out that book He kept trying to read, the latest issue of "The Amazing Spider-Man", and a few articles about the latest bullshit spewing from Donald Trump's mouth. Beyond those articles, He sat and He read the comments coming from those loonies who actually want to vote for Trump and He laughed. And none of it was really very inspiring or intellectual or world changing, and yet the Writer read it all. And He continued to read this, or watch a clip of that, and it all amounted to a wasted afternoon. And the Writer was growing tired, and He saw this and thought it was good?

The Writer said, "Let there be video games and Facebook and binge watching that new show everyone keeps talking about and porn. And before long, a whole lot of time had passed and not much was accomplished, and that paper upon his desk laid dormant, gathering dust, still devoid of any sort of meaning or purpose. And still the barren paper continued to haunt the Writer who knew that He had not accomplished His intended task to create, to build, to nurture and structure a world of His own. And the Writer looked upon his failed creation and he saw that it was bad. And the Writer sighed, for every creation story must have a villain, He mused, and mine are procrastination and writer's block.

A Few Meditations on Monsters

Ah, Halloween, my favorite time of year.  The ghosts and ghouls are abroad in the chilling autumn air.  In the spirit of the season, I have taken some time to muse upon some of the classic creatures of horror.  Enjoy!

Modern Prometheus

A Pantoum

Blackness as far as my eyes can see
I am lost in the gentle waves at the bottom of an abyss
Perchance be that a light, dim and out of reach?
All I know is I am alone and afraid

I am lost in the gentle waves at the bottom of an abyss
Please, for the love of god, help me!
All I know is I am alone and afraid
Emptiness surrounds me

Please for the love of god, help me!
A scent of metal on stagnant air, the taste of decayed ink upon my tongue
Emptiness surrounds me
I wish to leave this horrid place

A scent of metal on stagnant air, the taste of decayed ink upon my tongue
Lightning crackles in the distance
I wish to leave this horrid place
Am I man or be I monster?

Lightning crackles in the distance
I awaken from my slumber.  Is this the work of the gods?
Am I man or be I monster?
A man before me proclaimes, "It's alive!"

I awaken from my slumber, I this the work of the gods?
Perchance be that a light, dim and out of reach?
A man before me proclaimes, "It's alive!"
Blackness as far as my eyes can see

A Meeting of Strangers

His sensual voice spoke softly, sweet nothings, promises of overwhelming joy into her ear, this man with such powerful presence and reserve.  Be still my aching heart, she thought as the gentle thump, thump, thump began to drown out all the sounds of the night.  Their eyes met and in an instant she felt faint.  As some gallant knight of old, he swooped in and with powerful arms grasped her trembling form as she melted to the floor.
"I have you, my pretty little thing," he gently cooed.
Love's sweet kiss came to her full, flush lips.  Blood rushed up to her faces this wonderful man brought love's tender bite down to her slender neck and drained life right through her open vein.

Purim

Jared stared intensely at the television screen.  He looked down at the paper in his trembling hands, back up at the high definition image and again at those numbers prominently displayed within his clenched palms.  Jared's once proud jaw hung open in astonished disbelief.  Tears welled up in his shining green eyes.
To his right, Cindy jumped to her feet and screamed.  Unable to contain herself, she ran into their shared bedroom of twenty some odd years.  From the living room, Jared could hear Cindy's rhythmic thumping on the hardwood floors.  This was the end of an era, he thought.  Nothing in their lives could or would ever be the same and he hardly knew how he should feel about it all.  Certainly he could understand Cindy's reaction and to this he could hardly blame her for her ill contained excitement.  The dreams Jared and Cindy had held for so long of a comfortable life free from the hard labors of a daily job full of stress and woe were so close at hand.
With a swift and decisive movement, Jared rose from the couch, turned off the television set and sat himself into the armchair of his home office desk.  This is where he was still to be found by the police the next morning, opened bottle of Macallan close at hand and nearly finished, gun half-cocked and too cowardly to fire.  Cindy had gone, packed with all the affects she could carry and vanished into the night.  He'd see her again most like.  A litany of financial documents before him, his sins laid bare for all the world to see, his sterling reputation shattered.  I am going to hang for this, he thought.  What terrible lies I've wrought, to think I could play a lottery with peoples' lives, most befitting that I should win the most deserving prize of all.

A Memory in Déjà Vu

“A One Man Performance Piece”

Have we met before? Have I been here?

I am certain that I remember having seen and been and done and used the things I now am quite unsure of.

Or am I?

I know that I don't know but we have, haven't we? No? Are you sure?

Because I am positive I would remember and I do. Don't you?

You say you do but now I don't so who's to say whom remembers rightly or wrongly?

You're wrong. We haven't met before.

I would have known if I knew you before I met you here just now but earlier.

But I've definitely been here before. Of that I'm certain. I think.

What was the question?

A Quick Look at the Dark

What do you fear? The endless dark, the cold so deep in everlasting death? Heights so great they scream to you until your faltering balance pulls you crashing down? An eight-legged beastie hanging from a thread just above you, perhaps? Look up. She's right there overhead. Perhaps your greatest fear is failure, a life unfulfilled, unloved, loneliness, childless, forgotten. Why? Why do we fear such things? Certainly death would be a release from tedium, a realm where we would have naught to fear. Nothing in the dark can hurt you any less by dawn's daybreak. What harm could a simple spider cause? It's still hanging above you, by the way. No, not the arachnid. The phobia, the mind-numbing, hair-prickling fear. It controls you. It controls us all. "Fear is the mind killer." Control the fear. Let it in, just a little, and you will be master over your destiny.

I'll come up with a title yesterday, or perhaps I did it tomorrow? A new poem, perchance?

To All Our Yesterdays To Come, Our Tomorrows Remembered

Yesterday I will have been but tomorrow I haven't yet

To say so long to days long gone, to days to be and those I've met

I was tomorrow to be a man but yesterday has yet to pass

So I sat through tomorrow just a boy and I'll watch yesterday through a looking glass

If yesterday was as tomorrow then soon I'll be what I need to be,

But if yesterday stays before tomorrow came then I'll not be the man I wish to see

To today's tomorrow, to tomorrow's yesterday, I will to be what I have been

That is to say to be what I was or not be that which I seem

So here I will sit yesterday as I look fondly back on tomorrow

Through tears and fears and constant doubts I think ahead to yester's sorrow.

The Shadow in the Corner

The man in the long white coat moved restlessly down the narrow corridors of stately old Arkham, hells font and hub for all manner of insanity in seaboard Massachusetts. Suddenly beckoned to the chambers of one waiting Simon Whately at such an ostentatious hour, he had scarcely wiped Morpheus from his shadowed eyes.  Mr. Whately's locked ward of padded white had drawn an unsightly shade of nether grays at this late stage.  Screaming for bloody Carcosa, Whately moaned sweet relief from the king of jaundiced tatters. 

The man in the long white coat, seeing nothing else for it, drew upon the folds of his pocket for a long syringe filled with a liquid of the most vile and sickliest shade of vermilion.  "It's all right, Simon.  We'll have you all better soon," he lied as his usual ritual to the screaming man.  An orderly who had accompanied the coated man held Simon down, an unnecessary yet practiced tradition as the man in the coat injected the liquid into the deepest veins of Simon's crimson streams.  The maddened man slowly began to ease his stress, the orderly lessened his grasp, and both came to state of calm.  The man in the long white coat sighed a long relief.  "Don't look at his eyes.  With any luck, he should remain this way until morning.  Come along, Ducat."

Shortly thereafter, reconstituted anew within the trappings of his dim lit office, the man in the long white coat graciously sipped his brandy.  Given the approaching dawn, foreshadowed by the twinkling red-grays on the horizon, he saw no need to take rest and recounted the file of Mr. Whately.  A resident of the Miskatonic region by right of blood, Simon was yet another inbred cousin of the notorious Whately family, known throughout the backwaters of the county as either devil worshipping witches or god-fearing and humble folks.  This all of course depended on who you spoke to.  Regardless, the Whatelys were amongst the first of old English stock to have settled the Miskatonic River Valley some four hundred years prior, having dispatched the red Indians from the land and founding one of the first Puritan colonies.  No one is truly certain as to what befell the Whately family; some local legends speak of an Indian curse on the land over unfair payment, some suggest a weirding over the lands far older and darker.  What can be verified is that a strain of madness runs through the progeny of Buford Whately, a likely product of the old patriarch's selective inbreeding of the family to ensure "pure Christian blood". 

The family, which once owned lands from the Kingsport to Dunwich and the swamps beyond, has met with severe misfortune over the centuries, losing much of their prominence, wealth, and respect in the community at large.  Only the old and dilapidated farmhouse, facetiously referred to as Whately Manor by the locals (at one time just a small annex of a larger property that did boast a splendid mansion house) is all that remains of the Whately's great wealth.

Simon, a member of a lesser (yet no less tainted) branch of the house, had been admitted to the Arkham Sanitarium no less than a year ago.  Prior to his incarceration, many who knew him described the man as a brilliant scholar and philanthropist who fought with every ounce of his being against the ascribed family curse that had brought ruin to so many of his kin.  A bright boy from early on, he was awarded scholarship by one of his wealthier relatives and prevailed in school.  Having left Massachusetts following the completion of his undergraduate studies at both Miskatonic University and Harvard, he traveled to New York City, where steady work as a banker and several well-placed investments in steel and automotives left Simon with a great deal of money after the War.  Simon continued to expand on his wealth for several years until at last he chose to return to the Arkham area seeking to settle down.

Perhaps it was the murky Innsmouth air, people wondered.  Perhaps the ancient curse was just waiting for good old Simon Whately to build himself up before knocking him down.  Whatever the circumstances, four months to the day of Simon Whately's return home he was admitted to the asylum in Arkham following a rather grotesque incident, gibbering nonsense and given to fits of screaming.  Arkham's staff remained entirely perplexed to the cause or any treatment to entirely abate his symptoms.  Heavy sedatives only quelled the screams temporarily but did little to nothing to remove the look of abject horror on his face.  He had also developed nyctophobia, or a severe fear of the dark.

Prior to his confinement to a padded cell, nurses observed a rather odd behavior Simon elicited in response to his sudden phobia.  By day, he always sat by the window, never looking outside but rather his eyes darted around ever inward to some distant inward umbral corner as if seeking some predatory foe only he knew to be hiding within the shadows.  As the day progressed, Simon would change his vantage point so to capture the most light around his person.  Should another patient interrupt the path between him and the light, Simon became agitated and violent.  As the dusky hours of evening approached, Whately would begin to suffer uncontrollably shivering fits.  The complete sunset brought the screams.

The man in the long white coat shivered to himself.  The screams were always disconcerting, but not so much as Simon's face.  It was always twisted into a frozen stare at something terrible.  His mouth never seemed to close as if he were screaming even when he was not.  And perhaps the worst were the eyes.  There was something indescribable about them.  While the rest of his face appeared to be paralyzed, the eyes never stopped moving, always darting here and there, seeking the darkest shadows.  Something was coming for Simon in slow motion and from all sides, an invisible adversary that was out for blood.

Perhaps strangest of all were the events which had brought Simon Whately to Arkham Sanitarium.  On the evening of February the fifth of the previous year, exactly four months to the day of Simon's return to Massachusetts, the police were dispatched to the Innsmouth home of Simon's father, Orville Whately, a fisherman within the local town.  According to neighbors, an argument between father and son got heated when gunfire was overheard.  When the local sheriff arrived at the scene, three were found dead with Simon, holding a knife in one hand and a tattered yellow book in the other, blood dripping generously from Simon, screaming his selfsame shrieks for which Whately has become best known.  The victims were Orville Whately himself, his daughter Annabelle Whately, and another young woman, Ms. Giselle Bennet.  Ms. Bennet was attributed to being Simon's fiancee by known associates and friends whom he had met in New York an intended to wed upon his return home.

If the triple homicide had not been damning enough, the case becomes even more strange in the wake of a forensic report which declared that only Annabelle had been stabbed, but not by Simon.  An old injury from his youth would have made it impossible for Simon to have garnered enough strength to have stabbed his sister, a large, slow woman who worked with her father on his fishing skiff.  Simon was, however, deemed responsible for the other deaths, his father having died of a wound to the chest by the previously alluded gunshot.  Giselle's death remains a mystery, appearing to have suffered a fatal heart attack at the moment that the Whatelys both met their end.  What began this heinous bout of murder?  A Mr. Julius Derleth, next-door neighbor to Orville Whately's modest apartment suggests that the matter of Simon's marriage to Giselle was the matter of contention.  Simon had returned to Innsmouth to receive his father's blessing but things became heated when his father refused the match and tried to convince his son to marry poor Annabelle or to match with another Whately as family custom.  Fellow fishermen down at local pub, Dagon's Wharf, a frequent haunt of Whately, refute Derleth's claim, citing that the Whately's of Innsmouth long shunned the tradition of their Dunwich counterparts and that Orville himself had wed a non-Whately woman.

When Simon was brought in for questioning, all he could mutter were strange, nonsensical words:

                                    Hastur wgah'n r'luh shogg ng'y'fhtagn fhalma

Beyond this, he could only shout, "Y'hah!" or scream.  It would be several weeks before Simon recalled any English and since, his vocabulary has become limited to only a select few single syllable words: black, shade, king, and ma.  He appears to recall none of the events that lead him through the asylum's doors nor the words he spoke after being aprehended by the police... beyond one.  The first word, 'Hastur', has been muttered from Mr. Whately's lips many times, often while under the influence of the prescribed sedatives which limit his ability to scream.

"Hastur," pondered that man in the long white coat.  The word brought to his mind a fleeting memory, a long forgotten shore of some sandy beachhead, alight with suns... no sun, singular, there is only one sun, he chuckled.  At long last, the man in the long white coat sat back in his chair to relax, took one last drag from his pipe and rested his weary eyes.  Soon, he would have to awaken for the day and make his daily rounds, but until then, he thought of Hastur and Whately and black stars upon a moonlit lake in far off Carcosa.

The man in the long white coat woke with a start.  Carcosa, Whately had spoken another word earlier that night.  He had cried out for Carcosa and a king, not in blacks but all in yellow.  The doctor poured over the report on Simon Whately once again.  The book, the book!  What was in that book?  The man groped through the file of Simon Whately, seeking out the damning information.  Deep within the arrest report, the officer made mention of a yellow tome clutched in Simon's left hand, a play entitled "The King in Yellow".  Before he could contemplate this fact further, a knock came at the doctor's chambers.

"Come in, please," the doctor beckoned. 

Entered the orderly, Mr. Ducat.  "Excusing me, monsieur," Ducat announced in his usual unsavory drawl.  "The man, Simon, he has..." he trailed off.

"Awake again?  So soon?  Very well then."  The man in the long white coat reached for a syringe and bottle of the usual scarlet drug.

"You won't be needing that, monsieur."

The man in the long white coat put down the bottle.  "He is... awake isn't he?  He isn't... has something happened to Mr. Whately?"

"You best be coming to look, monsieur."

The doctor rose from his desk chair and followed Mr. Ducat down the narrow corridors of stately old Arkham. Once again beckoned to the waiting chambers of Simon Whately in this early morning hour, he had refused Morpheus' touch upon his shadowed eyes.  Mr. Whately's locked ward of padded white had drawn a dreadful and appalling shade of crimson since last the doctor had visited.  Whately no longer screamed.  How could he?  Having managed to break free his restraints with uncanny strength, he had torn out his own larynx.  The eyes were no longer of any concern either.  It is far to horrifying to speak of what had become of them.

The man in the long white coat, knowing not what else to do nor what spectral force provoked him to do so, crept close to Simon and drew upon the folds of the lifeless man's jacket, drawing out a book the color of saffron in spring.  "What have we here, Simon?" the man wondered aloud to no one in particular.  He was already uncomfortably aware that he already knew the answer.  The stench of fear began to pervade the air as the doctor dusted off the cover to "The King in Yellow", turning to a page at random, he spoke aloud the text:

Cassilda:                   In Carcosa, you would do well to remain out of the shadows.

The Stranger:             My dear, I am the shadows and soon I will be you.  Then you will be                                                  in the shadows.

The man in the long white coat, eyes widened, continued to read.  As the fear in his eyes continued to build, the hot, wet damp of urine slid down his shaking legs.  Soon, it was as if he could not put down the book in hand, feverishly reading through the Act I for some hint or clue as to what had transpired.  He turned to Act II and began to scream.  In the shadows of the room, writing tendrils ripped their way toward the man in the long white coat, a coat which was no longer so white at all but yellowed by the sins around him, torn in tatters to match his breaking mind.  A tentacled arm, wriggling in shapes no man would ever describe, so help him, wrenched out what little remained of the doctor's soul.

Ducat broke down the asylum door, bursting into the room to force down the doctor with his impressive physique.  The man in yellow tatters remained inconsolable.  He turned to Ducat and uttered, "We are nothing to him.  Why did I not listen?  Stay out of the shadows or the shadows will creep into you."  He laughed with a maniacal shriek.  Ducat carried the doctor out of the room, strapping him into a jacket as another doctor came rushing toward the commotion.

"I am not knowing, monsieur.  He is mad!"

The attending physician looked down at his screaming companion and sighed, "It seems not one is safe, not even our Doctor Alistair Whately.  Take him away."

I purport to be no poet, but I thought I'd try my hand at one.

The following is untitled, or maybe it's titled "Lost & Found".  Or maybe I should just shut up and write.

My keys, my keys!

I've lost my keys.

Has anyone else lost their keys?

Always when I'm running late or early or even on time,

Those blasted jangling nightmares can never be found.

I search through couches, pouches, jackets & jeans.

Always the last place once would expect,

And obviously the last place looked.

In my pocket? Damn it all,

Ready to go? No!

My wallet, my wallet!

Again with the wallet.

Has it fallen out of my pocket?

All my cash and coupons, cards!

Credit, debit, ID, ARRRGH!!

Turn around and there it is

On my nightstand right where I left it.

My glasses, my glasses!

How can I see without my glasses?

How can I search without sight for something I need in order to seek?

I have misplaced them again and again.

"Where o where have my spectacles gone?

Where o where can they be?"

On my face you say?

I see.

A new blog with stuff I just make up as I go along.

It's 2015!  A new year!  Three months ago!  So I'm a little late to following through with life goals, or maybe not?  It's never too late, except when you die in which case, who cares?!  I started attending a creative writing class, so as promised, this blog will basically be my showcase to whatever I have written for the week, in class or out.

First up, an exercise in processing thoughts: when asked the question, "If you were anything in nature, what would you be and why?" I came up with something a bit outside the norm, or perhaps something essentially part of all the norm:

I am the atom, small and unassuming to the outside observer, a fundamental building block of all there is, was, and will be.  Packed with power and potential, without me there is nothing; I am infinitely important and infinitesimally insignificant.  Together with others of my ilk, we become a union of all life and matter, split from my basest structures, I release the rage of the sun.