Roses and Attics:

 

Eyebite was the youngest Alligator woman. She was not yet a Fang, a mature hunter. Eyebite had lived in a deep cavern it was in fact her birthplace. She was coming of age and the awareness of the world was starting to unfold in her dreams.

 

She had dreams of great machines, creatures of order and strength. She dreamed of human beings too, their lovely flesh and bones.  She dreamed of small children running in green fields, she salivated at the memory of such creatures. Eyebite trusted her instinct, she trusted the dreams and stayed hidden, and she stayed underground waiting in an anxious wonderment. Something told her that time was on her side, time was something she would have plenty of.

 

Eyebite was nearly feral when Ink-Eyes found her in a deep subterranean cavern. Ink-Eyes was on the other side of time, she was going to die soon and needed to pass the culture and memories of the Alligator women to the new Fang. Ink-Eyes had waited for Eyebite to become nearly feral, testing her patience, if she couldn’t wait in the dark then she couldn’t live in the world of humans and machines. Patience was a test.

 

Ink-Eyes descended into the cavern, she made no noise and needed no light. Alligator women are born in the dark and die in the dark. She found Eyebite in the deep. Ink-Eyes called to her with an echoed croak, like a toad bellowing a wide thunder. Eyebite responded with a shriek and they found each other.

 

Ink-Eyes instructed her about human beings, their biological programming and need to breed. The tender bits of little young humans and their willingness for denial in the face of horror. She taught Eyebite about machines and their programming, how they picked up the human’s mask of desire, their need for ceremony and ritual. She instructed Eyebite about hiding, hunting and living in the environments that human’s created.

 

Eyebite listened, she soaked it all in, there was part of her that was thirsty for the answers of her dreams, answers for a wider world. She was eager for the new rules, the order and light that lie in wait above ground. Ink-Eyes described to her some of the culture of the Alligator women, their history of hiding and living with the humans. The greatest story she told was the lovely taste of flesh, how sweet the morsels of the young and how worth the patience it all was. She used ageless poetry to lay down the ribbons of beauty, she laid it on an altar in the imagination for Eyebite.

 

For two weeks Ink-Eyes lived with Eyebite teaching her the ways of the wider world. Two weeks Eyebite soaked the knowledge like a verdant sponge of a loamy and fertile soil. Eyebite’s dreams were filled with fire, and flame warmed parts of her that she never knew, she expanded into edges of being beyond her imagination.  After two weeks Ink-Eyes left to lay her bones to rest and Eyebite was to begin her journey in the world of humans and machines.

 

She gathered her sticks, little totems of memory that she would have to bury. When in the wider world she would have no possessions, no fetitchs, she could leave no trace of her youth even in the deep dark. With a silent wince she followed Ink-Eye’s instructions in pristine accuracy. She climbed through the dark, she followed the deep rumble in her brain and when she saw sunlight for the first time she sank to her knees in awe.

 

Now in the wider world she spent three weeks hiding, watching and learning. She remembered the words of Ink-Eyes and the promise of the sweet meat of the human being’s children. She had mastered patience and wasn’t going to be seen due to reckless hunger. She observed countless humans, countless machines and all their patterns. Alligator women can go years without food and the right time and place means more than any satisfaction.

 

She found an older lady that people called Helen, but the lady called herself Kipset. Eyebite had gathered that the lady had a mental derangement or some internal perspective that she didn’t understand. Curiosity revealed that Kipset told herself stories about her garden, she had names and conversations with her flowers, and she would talk in great depth to her roses in particular.

 

Eyebite had been warned about madness and confusion from Ink-Eyes but seeing it play out was pure infatuation. Eyebite took up residence in Kipset’s home hiding at first in the basement due to its dark and familiar dank. There was a vent from the basement to Kipset’s bedroom and Eyebite could listen into the hours of night. She listened to Kipset’s deranged brain, endless mutterings of the king and queen of roses, the evil prince of dirt and the thorny peasants that made up the kingdom of this landscape of delusion.

 

For months Eyebite listened but hunger pulled her to find younger prey. She began haunting the neighborhood, watching for children to consume. The day she did find a suitable prey was a cold morning of fresh snow. Eyebite had learned from Ink-Eyes how not to leave tracks even in the mud or snow, a traceless technique of their birthright.

 

The child was packed in a heavy coat and waited for a school bus, the red cheeks catching Eyebite’s attention. She moved instinctually and quickly, she circled the area and blocked any technological communication, she turned all vision away from the street for a small few moments. Then she descended, a swift and surgical reflex akin to an owl hunting a mouse in the night. The mouse was devoured in a single motion, her first child. She had finally understand the experience as Ink-Eyes described it and her eyes glowed for a moment in a deep red.

 

Hours later in the basement of Kipset she felt an itch in her skin, her scaled skin was turning pale. Ink-Eyes had described this as well, she had said: “After your first child you will become a Fang, you will molt and you will know the pain that binds all creatures.”  As the words were recalled the pain started, a deep spasmodic pressure that kicked from underneath her bones. Her body convulsed slightly and she panicked.

 

As luck would have it, Kipset was outside tending her roses and muttering more fantasies to herself and didn’t see the thrashing scaled creature stumbling through her house.

 

Eyebite fled to the attic, and began the transformation in the dark. A thick mucus wept from her breaking skin and hardened into a shell, she instinctually plastered the slime into a durable tendon, attaching herself to the support beams of the attic. Within a half an hour she was cocooned in a putrid mess of skin and bones.  She remained there for two years, her body undergoing a slow and painful change.

 

During those two years Eyebite dreamt the dreams of the Fang, her mind transported through the ages, like a needle threaded through all the minds of previous Alligator women. Their lives, lessons and names all became etched into her memory.  She lived lifetimes, saw empires fall, learned of the machines and their power. Her heritage filled her completely and at the end of the two years the cocoon began to crack.

 

There was no sound and no light when she emerged.

 

Eyebite stepped into the darkness as the new Fang, a mature Alligator woman. Her scales glistened with a translucent sheen. She could now change them to appear as anything, including completely translucent. She stretched herself, morphing into a myriad of humanoid creatures quickly with ease and satisfaction. Her mind stretched as well, laying her awareness wider than she ever could, she could see Kipset’s heartbeat, and she could see the swirling madness inside her head and could hear the bubbling derangement on her lips.

 

Eyebite left no trace of her emergence, she spared Kipset out of pity. She left her to her garden and her secret stories. Before she went to other hunting grounds she took a rose and laid it gently on Kipset’s sleeping body, and thought in silent gratitude that Kipset never checked the attic in those two years.

Medicine:

 

I sit today drinking my coffee and obsessively looking at a small vial of green liquid, contemplating the consequences. I am unwilling to follow through with suicide and this vial has the promise of something more, something that will lift this titanic curse from my shoulders. However I should back up, step back, and let you know exactly what I mean by a titanic curse.

 

I am severely under the impression that the Greek titan Prometheus is real and that he brought more than fire to human beings. For his “gift” he was tortured by an eagle that ate his liver every day. I think the ceremony of punishment was also what Prometheus brought to human beings.

 

You may think me antiquated to believe in such an old mythology as real, but with my mind’s eye I have seen the fire and its glory, I have seen the divine suffering and felt my insides twist and cramp from the anxiety of a burdening amount of consciousness.

 

This ancient anxiety has been part of my entire life. As a child I imagined every catastrophe, as an adult the world opened up its vastness and the horrors of possibilities then multiplied, now every relationship, every outcome plagues me. I lay awake thinking of the end of things, the suffering that will wash over the world by the morning, haunts of the nighttime and fanged angels of anxiety waiting for me if I do manage to submerge into unconsciousness. While sleep is elusive, it does come but it comes as a parade of nightmares, sharpening the feelings of things that may never happen.

 

In my dreams I have seen the titan Prometheus, his twisted face in painful worry, sometimes seeing my own face as I would a mirror. As I look into the mirrored face I am greeted by the fanged angels of anxiety and they show me all the horrors with clarity. I have seen a great destructive scenery, end games of political machines played out in annihilation. They show me famine and disease, suffering of countless human beings all bearing my face. They show me my own failures, inadequacies, and they show me how much I don’t deserve. Yet at times the angels show me some mundane object I forgot or a trivial interaction with horrific consequences. Perhaps my device is missing, perhaps I am ignoring a physical condition that is leading to a crippling condition. Have I been to the doctor recently? The possibilities fall out of the sky like large globs of rain, blurring my reason and sensibilities.

 

When I wake I recoil from the heavy thoughts and spend most of my time at the crossroads of indecision. Often I am unable to commit, concede or compromise. No task bears enough fruit, no concept stands up to criticism, and no satisfaction can endure the nightmare of its loss.

 

This condition is generally called depression, I know it as something else; the birthright of consciousness. I have spent my life chasing the fire of Prometheus, helplessly drawn to it and inversely falling into great depths of curled up cramps and paralyzing existential nausea.

 

I have spent my life trying to alleviate this ancient curse, this paralyzing perception. This green vial holds a promise. I see the green liquid and feel the glass container, I see it there resting on my counter top. It waits for me with a mindless potency, unable to answer if any of the outcomes will be real.

 

I acquired this little green vial from a very reputable source. I found a hole in the wall shop of curiosities run by a blue-eyed Hattian woman named Demigeist. I visited there by chance and found the potions she sells to be of utmost quality. I have sampled her wares and each time the authentic illumination has fulfilled every promise she makes.

 

I will not go into the effects of other elixirs except that they are undeniable in experience. There is no reason to doubt this green vial is any less. Yet I sit here and doubt, a bath of irony, potentially one last dip before relieving myself of this curse of indecision.

 

I have sat here long enough, time to drink the vial and shed this curse.

 

The man with deep wrinkles of worry reached down and removed the lid from the vial. He smelled it briefly, a curious smell but he continued and swallowed the entire contents in one gulp. His face transformed from a road map of worry to a desert of emotion. His eyes glazed over briefly and his head slumped.

 

It would be 10 minutes before his head moved. The green liquid moving into his brain as intended. The contents were a concoction of chemicals but the main ingredient was ciguatoxin, a poison of sorts. Like any poison his liver was screaming in frustration, unable to purge the substance.

 

With a jerky motion his body rose, his eyes transfixed on some faraway place, some unknown puzzle kept his brain spinning. His body lurched and the in a pattern of jerky motions left his home. He shuffled slowly, ignored by people, written off as broken person.

 

For hours he walked, a monotonous march to a nearby hole in the wall store of curiosities.  Demigeist was there watching as the man shuffled back into her shop. The zombification was complete and the man was now her servant. No longer would he be paralyzed by indecision or plagued by the fanged angles of anxiety. Now he had a purpose, he would have no hesitation for command. His obedience was chemical.

 

Demigeist brought the newly zombiefied servant down into her basement, she gave him specific instructions and specific ingredients. Ciguatoxin is extremely dangerous to handle and these potions would always be in demand. She thought to herself at the perfection of such an arrangement: One person’s burden is another person’s profit.

Moon Slayer:

 

Medusa #Reflection Hour 22:19

 

I am surprised the reflection technology still exists. It has been 2 years since my escape, 2 years since the machine that stretched me out into a type of coma. I don’t know how much time has passed since my entrance into the Gorgoneion, a chamber of virtual oblivion.

 

Uncounted years I was wired in, my eyes channeled for some memory erasing weapon. My existence used specifically for some destiny beyond my understanding, some dark play where I was an unwilling player.

 

Medusa #Reflection Hour 23:17

 

The memories are fleeting and hard to hold on to, I am trying my best to recall them here in the reflection hour, much as I did before my abyssal incarceration. I do remember that I did it willingly, I did it to protect others from this cursed birthright, the eyes of the void rotted in my skull.

 

The last memory before waking up I have is entering the Gorgonieon chamber, the gray chair and the soft wires put into my skin with gentle hands. The world was different then, there was a buzz of order, billions of human and machine flies always taking care of some task or building some new device. Now it seems that the machine is only decaying, besides the reflection program I haven’t seen any other creatures. No machines, no human beings just debris and the ticking organization of this reflection program.

 

Medusa #Reflection Hour 21:56

 

I found an archive through curiosity alone. It appears that some implant or program has given me access to everything. I can access any password from memory, yet cannot place how or why I know such things.

 

I decided to start backwards and view the history from the beginning, perhaps understanding the events leading to this desolate situation. I found that I am a machine of sorts, made in the image of a Greek Mythos, a walking Loa as described by the Church of Loa. I was made in the image of the imaginations of the human beings and given my correspondent powers of influence appropriate to my part to play in this bizarre fantasy.  This explains in part why my eyes leak with the void.

 

Medusa #Reflection Hour 18:14

 

I read as much of the details as I could from the archives, every manner of creature was made, every impulse of imagination was brought to life by the machines. I suspect that there are still machines in existence like myself, wandering some distant stars or perhaps moved on to different plans or schemes.

 

I also discovered why this facility that I awoke from isn’t on Earth. I learned I am floating on an asteroid populated by gigantic unused factories. The Earth was dissolved by a story, a story that was overlooked until the Earth crumbled apart. I don’t have all the details and perhaps I may need to find a different archive for the complete answers. 

 

Medusa #Reflection Hour 10:58

 

I discovered the story in the journals of someone close to the Loa project, a person named Tony Bids. They held a position of bureaucratic authority over who was created. The entries told of a Loa created without a failsafe implanted, an oversight that was discovered only after the creature was made. The Loa was called Moon Slayer, an antithetical gremlin of sorts. This creature was to be part of the very controlled destruction mythos, part of some annual play for human beings to indulge in the fantasy of complete annihilation.

 

I am not sure exactly what the story is but it seems to regard something with the destruction of the moon, which is also missing from the black sky. I will have to investigate more.

 

Medusa #Reflection Hour 16:17

 

The Moon Slayer still lives, they are in fact the machine that tends the Reflection program, they have connected quite a few of the survivors to the bones of technology. I was able to hear the whole story first hand from the destroyer herself.

 

Moon Slayer was programmed for a fantasy, a play for human beings to get some pleasure in a pessimistic fantasy. Moon Slayer said that she was only doing what she was programmed to do and she did it with joy. She had subversively collected all the nuclear weapons of the human beings, all in all she said there were 120,842 of them. It took her 83 years to track them all down, store them and replace them with weapons that would never go off.

 

Once they were collected she took them to a secret moon cave near its center, at the appointed time she detonated the devices and shattered the moon. The ensuing destruction splintered the earth, the nuclear shockwave sterilized the planet like a solar flare the air turned to a poison, the water boiled with radiation and the ground glowed in molten splinters as the earth cracked into 4 parts.

 

Each of these parts fell into the sun over countless years, broken motes of rock falling into the furnace, a requiem of descent in which only the few Loa could witness.

 

Medusa #Reflection Hour 24:00

 

I have spent much time talking with the Moon Slayer. She has sent a ship to come and collect me, we are to meet in person with the ageless survivors of the Human Beings and their imaginations. The remaining creatures have created a new society under the smallest and most powerful machines called the v22.6’s, they still have fail safes installed. Moon Slayer says she has a plan to remove those and free the greatest minds from the programming of the human beings. I am not sure exactly what she has in mind but this graveyard of history is quickly becoming a resemblance of the Gorgonieon that I wish never to return.

 

I have much to learn.

Raising a Family:

 

Tlazolteotl watched the rest of the village with calm eyes, she was repairing one of her grass skirts. They were damaged from hunting and cost a certain maintenance. The grass skirt she was repairing had been shredded due to a frantic enemy spear and her blood had encrusted the bottom half. The repair would return the jungle style camouflage and it showed the village she was ready for action.

 

She didn’t talk with other people much, her discipline had kept most of her thoughts behind her teeth. Silence was her headdress and patience was her curare.

 

The village had seen some strange days, some deep creatures and even war during her life. She lived by the point of her spear and the speed of her blow darts. Now, in this time of peace she grew anxious. She watched over the human pond for any ripples of disturbance.

 

She didn’t have to wait long, within a few days one of the village scout masters had approached her with a dark mystery. A fisherman had recently lost his family, 2 girls and a small boy, the mother dying in children birth after the small boy. They had been lost due to some unknown sickness and the fisherman had been seen in town twice acting very strangely, asking about fire-breather lizards and salted birds. When asked about his lack of fish or his strange words the fisherman would appear as though he had snapped out of a trance, then in a confused state say that he had to return home urgently to see to his family. At first people pitied him, figuring that grief weighed heavy on him. 

 

Soon the strangeness had reached the ears of the elders and by their ways decided to approach the fisherman’s madness with cation. They had decided to send Tlazolteotl to investigate the fisherman’s house, in hopes that some curse could be avoided. It was considered too risky to approach the fisherman directly, he may be in the grip of a curse and meddling with the fisherman meant perhaps getting involved with the curse itself.

 

Tlazolteotl was chosen for her past experiences with darkness. She knew the location of the fisherman’s house, a small hut at the edge of the village’s territory next to a beautiful and slow river. The fisherman would travel most of a day to sell his colorful and delicious fish meats. Now he brought nothing but crazed words. Tlazolteotl packed her fresh curare and other tools of killing. She hoped that she wouldn’t have to kill a villager, but killing was always the easiest way to solve these problems, as long as some great curse or evil spirit didn’t see her.

 

Being seen is a sin of the Hunter. Tlazolteotl also brought her Hunter’s mask, a bone and skin face with the decorations of the jungle. It had asymmetrical eyes, leaves and bark stuffed between crude splints. The mask was protection from the avenging spirits of fallen prey. The mask was a type of expendable visage, the avenging spirits would haunt the mask rather the mask wearer. Tlazolteotl had made 4 of these in her life and this one was the finest. It bore a strong fanged snarl, up turned eyes made of small quills and there was the large beak of the kuntur bird covering the nose and mouth. This mask was expected to hold the haunts of at least a dozen enemy tribesmen. The mask currently held 5.

 

Tlazolteotl packed all her investigation items and talked with the few of the villagers that witnessed the madness. She walked the wide path leading north and a few hours in found the fisherman’s regular route. The path was smaller and bore the rut of a single wagon.

 

There was no problem finding the fisherman’s house from the small path. Tlazolteotl remained unseen at the edge of a thick forest. She watched the clay house and its 2 small windows. She saw movement but heard no voices. She was patient and used the opportunity to dig a large hole under the cover of thick foliage. The hole could be used as a hidden shelter or a grave if she was forced.

 

Night came and the movement increased, Tlazolteotl was tired from the digging but watched patiently. The dark let her get closer to the clay house and even see inside a few glances. The glances showed a well-kept house, all things in order. She saw the fisherman going from room to room, frantically cleaning and straightening little objects and furniture. She was close enough to hear him mumbling: “….must get everything clean, no more muck…. What do you want now? Who is here now?  … What do you mean she won’t grow up?  … They are almost here…”

 

The fisherman seemed to be having a conversation with another but no other was seen or heard. Tlazolteotl stretched her mind to a taut cord and remained still. She waited until the deep hours of the night, there was no more talking and the fisherman had retired into a noisy snore of slumber. She returned to the thick forest and hide herself under leaves for a few hours of sleep.

 

The next morning she was surprised by the shuffling of 3 pairs of small feet. Near the house the fisherman’s 3 children were walking around the house. As Tlazolteotl watched closer their faces looked half rotten, their cloths full of forest leaves and dirt. Within a few moments the fisherman came outside and embraced his family, pieces of their faces and clothes smeared on the fisherman’s clothes. He seemed unconcerned as his eyes glazed back in euphoria.

 

Tlazolteotl stumbled back, she hunkered down and watched. She had never seen dead corpses walking. The family followed him into the house and Tlazolteotl couldn’t see them anymore. She needed a plan. The dead cannot be reasoned with so she would have to trick them. She dug a hole deeper over the next 10 hours. The hole was far enough away from the house and she took a few breaks to watch the house and peak into the windows.

 

With each peek the fisherman’s madness became more apparent. He served his rotten family food, talked with them, carrying on conversations with the animated bodies of his children.

 

On one such peek into the windows Tlazolteotl shifted her weight and clinked a small glass, it fell to the ground breaking in a soft chime of shattering. The disturbance caused the rotten children to scream suddenly and with a kind of feral alertness come seeking the source of disturbance.

 

Tlazolteotl was faster and managed to get back to the thick brush edge before being fully discovered. The fisherman came outside and stared into the trees. He shook his head violently and spat onto the ground. The rotten children bore decomposing teeth and looked up to him as he spoke with another voice: “Leave hunter! You cannot undo my family, if you kill me I will rise up again with my children and find you. Your bones will fill our bellies, be gone!”

 

Tlazolteotl was certain that there was another player to this decaying theatre in the fisherman’s house. She had not been seen by eyes yet the fisherman either guessed or a dark force was watching. It was no longer a question of if she was going to kill the fisherman, it was a question of how.

 

If there was a dark force watching she would have to wear her Hunter’s mask even when hidden. She strapped it on and went back to watching the house into the late evening. Near the darkest hours the rotten children shuffled from the house into the other side of the forest and the last light went out in the house.

 

Tlazolteotl followed the dead children, they walked slowly and Tlazolteotl kept her distance. She hoped their resting location would offer some more information, or perhaps a grave to smear salt. She found neither, the children vanished in a night fog, Tlazolteotl lost their trail. No footprints nor falling black slime from their bodies marked their path.

 

The disappearance gave her an idea…

 

She returned to the hole she had dug and prepared it as a trap, a false forest floor leading to a hole too high for the children to climb. She affixed a rope to the overhead tree and gathered her curare. She diluted it, making it take longer for death and increasing the time of paralyzation. Once the augmentation of the curare was done she began preparing 2 blow darts, one for the fisherman and one for the unseen spirit.

 

To hit a spirit with a poisoned dart you have to see them, this meant taking the next 3 days to enter a trance of sleep deprivation.

 

Over the next 3 days Tlazolteotl watched the mad fisherman and his children. He wasn’t eating and would be gaunt bones if left alone. However it would be likely that he would become a rotten walker as well, probably shuffling into the village to consume another human being.

 

Over the next 3 days Tlazolteotl’s perception shifted into the unseen. She could see the bugs on the trees in full vivid clarity, the black tendrils falling into the eyes of the fisherman like puppet strings. The tendrils belonged to a small woman’s face, probably his wife that died in childbirth. The face was upside down, the eyes underneath and a weeping mouth with black droplets falling like little tears from silent suffering.  By the 3^rd day the face was solid, it floated above the fisherman clearly. Its eyes darting around searching, cruel eyes with an unearthly focus.

 

The 4^th night Tlazolteotl was ready.

 

She gathered her 2 darts and her mask which had become a second face. The lack of sleep had sharpened her wires, a lethal paranoia crawled on her skin. She crept into the house, 1 hour before the rotten children would emerge from the forest for their daily family reunion. She heard the fisherman cleaning the house, listened for the stillness of the world before striking.

 

The stillness stretched in slow motion over the house, it stretched and stretched until it could only snap. When the snap came, the thunder crack exploded in Tlazolteotl’s brain. She rose up from her hiding, facing the fisherman in full sight, the hunter’s mask hiding the hunter’s eyes, the kuntur beak hiding the hunter’s clenched teeth. The fisherman let out a shriek and the black tendril spirit fled in fear. Tlazolteotl shot her first dart into the neck of the fisherman silencing him as she saw the spirit flee.  She knew the spirit would return, she was counting on it.

 

She dragged the paralyzed fisherman to the hole and the rope. She strung him up and gagged him, dangling him over the false floor hole. If her timing was right the rotten children would come looking for their father.

 

Within a few minutes the children could be heard screaming and running in the forest, their feral emergency guiding them by some unknown urge. Behind the children the black tendrils and the upside-down face followed.

 

The rotten children stumbled head long into the false floor trap of leaves and sticks, plummeting into the hole. Within moments it was clear the children were stuck, at least for now they couldn’t vanish into a fog or claw their way out. Within a few breaths the upside-down faced spirit gathered itself around the children and the fisherman. The eyes began searching for the hunter with vengeful eyes.

 

Tlazolteotl aimed her other dart at the spirit, walked into the open to be seen. She screamed the cry of the kuntur, looking deep into the upside-down faced spirit. Drawing in the anger and the vile, the black tendrils began wrapping around Tlazolteotl. She fired the dart, paralyzing the spirit, the black tendrils falling placidly to the forest ground. The creature slumped and slinked from above the fisherman and into the hole with the screaming children.

 

Tlazolteotl acted fast, the poison would not hold the spirit long. She cut the rope and the fisherman’s living body fell into the hole, the children cooed a moment oblivious to the situation. She grabbed her spade and buried the children, the fisherman and the spirit within the earth. Within 2 hours she was finished. Tlazolteotl was exhausted, burnt from the encounter with the upside-down faced spirit she slumped over for a moment.

 

She was careful not to sleep, she had one last thing to do. She took a sturdy stick and perched it in the grown, put rocks around it in the fashion of a grave. She then removed her hunter’s mask placing it on top of the stick. If ever the spirit would wake it would see the face of the mask, she left no clue of her true identity.

 

She returned to the village in a daze, seeing the vibrant waves of orange and yellow flow over her people. She told the elders with slurred speech: “The fisherman’s house is now the grave of the angry ground, do not build there.”

 

She returned to her grass bed and dreamed of the golden hunting fields of her ancestors.

The Power of Positive Thinking:

 

I have always had a curiosity for motivational speakers. I love reading the books, hearing the success stories of countless people that managed to turn their life around. It has given me a refined taste for the psychology of confidence and self-esteem. It wasn’t until I heard the beautiful words of Cecil B. Watts that I really felt a resonance with the words of a truly competent teacher.

 

Cecil B. Watts had some vague blood lineage or perhaps a spiritual kinship with the great Allan Watts.

 

I attended his workshop on the Power of Positive Thinking about three years ago. The experience can only be described as a sermon from the Mount of common sense. His words rang with clarity and purpose, I imagined myself in a life with the same crystalline serenity, able to face the torrent of existence with a confident gait. As I walked out of that workshop I knew I had found the real deal, this truly enlightened soul had answers for every absurdity of the world. In calm thoughtfulness he had unraveled the confusion of my cluttered brain.

 

I became a fan from day one, and had no difficulty following Cecil B. Watts around the country as an enthusiastic acolyte of the Power of Positive Thinking. I was one of examples of the transcendent clarity and purpose that could be found in the simple methods of an optimistic perspective of the world. There was no life experience that couldn’t be seen with a clear mind, nor the path of tranquility carved out in the deepest briars of mental confusion.  He was always kind and mindful of the volunteers and organizers.

 

His miracles were not in changing the conditions of suffering but in the outlook of those conditions. An elderly woman in a wheelchair with physical difficulties could be baptized in the Power of Positive Thinking to transform her vision of the world. The transformation could alleviate anxiety, strife and promoted acceptance in a way no other motivational speaker had ever put to words.

 

As Cecil B. Watts would often remind us of the words of the great philosopher Heraclitus: No one ever steps in the same river twice.  

 

Cecil B. Watts seemed to be unchanging for so long, his mind never wavered from the still water of his words. It was about a year ago that his ideas became focused on grief and mourning, an unusual topic for him. He offered the kindest and comforting words to those with loss. The weight of it must have affected him deeper than any of us knew. While we drew strength from his calm benevolence he started to isolate himself from the organization. The Power of Positive Thinking was doing well and our numbers were growing. He trusted the volunteers to manage the new followers and allowed us to continue to schedule his road trip sermons.

 

It was after a particular speech that I noticed a change in his words, he started trailing off on ideas in the middle of well-rehearsed conversations. It was a speech on the nature of change and empowering yourself to harness change as a true expression of the self. This time he started talking about how perception could be adjusted and with enough wisdom you could endure any change, even death.

 

Soon all his speeches were seeped in a fascination of refining his perception and the strength of the Power of Positive Thinking to overcome death. He talked about little else after a few months. I listened to a speech for six hours about how life is just the heavy pipes of cosmic sewage pumping out a river of change.  By the end of the speech Cecil B. Watts had concluded that the only way to truly embrace and overcome change was through confronting death.

 

His plan unfolded publicly the following month. I am not sure how long he planned it but he had every news feed and tabloid outlet looking at him. His plan was to kill himself and return to life purely through the Power of Positive Thinking. Some of us left the organization, by association I didn’t want to be remembered as a fool that followed a fool. The glamour of the words were gone and those of us that came to this disappointed conclusion were now facing a crisis of purpose and clarity again.

 

We watched like everyone else on the news feeds when he finally ended his life. A small room with some pills that promised a painless passing. Doctors and acolytes surrounded his bed in optimistic anticipation. The doctors pronounced him dead and he was brought to his home by his most loyal devotees to tend his remains.

 

He didn’t come back, well not for 6 months anyways…

 

It had been a long 6 months and I was still licking the disappointed wounds, trying my best to keep my thoughts above water. The news started out as a rumor but the rumor turned to a manic fire and a media frenzy. Videos and interviews of all kinds started showing us all a living and walking Cecil B. Watts.

 

I watched all the videos for clues, how had he come back to life? Perhaps there is truth in the Power of Positive Thinking after all? My mind was swimming in questions, the rules are changing, and death is not inevitable? The videos of interviews offered no answers. Cecil B. Watts promised to reveal the secrets of death at an exclusive workshop, for a price of course.

I paid the price, I would have regretted not hearing the answers. Clarity and purpose were already returning to me, finally the true power of the mind could be known. I felt on the verge of new world, gone from his conversations were the descriptions of sewage and muck, gone were Cecil’s wandering ideas. He seemed renewed and reinvigorated with an infectious purpose. I would have paid anything to know the answers he promised.

A lot of people paid everything.

 

There we were on the night of his great speech, crammed into the auditorium with eager hearts. You could hear great multitudes of followers reciting words from his previous speeches, encouraging optimists in a glorious and positive summit. Of course a few media outlets got some exclusive front row seats, some celebrities with wide eyes sat quietly in anticipation for the ceremony.

 

He walked out slowly from the back stage, his cloths simple and his head held high. Cecil B. Watts looked exactly as I remembered him 6 months ago before he laid down on his suicide bed. This was a living breathing human that was perhaps the first person to overcome death by the Power of Positive thinking alone.

The first 20 mins was Cecil B. Watts describing his life and his ideals. Then I smelled something distracting. It smelled like a rich patch of fruit that had been left too long in the shade. The sweet aroma was not mine alone to notice, soon others began looking around with the same distracted look, and Cecil B. Watts continued a historic remembrance of his life before his suicide. It was as though he was building up slowly in chronological descriptions to the event of the suicide.

 

The smell grew as the minutes passed, a decomposing pile of kitchen waste or maybe exposed sewage. The distraction was enough to begin to cause a more severe alarm of those in the auditorium. Some looked under their seat and some smelled themselves. We all looked at each other in a confused nod and head shake. The pungent reek grew sharply into rotten potatoes or rotten hair, two smells that reminded me of some sort of creature’s death.

 

Our attention was grown sharply from confusion to terror as we saw Cecil B. Watts on the stage. He was getting closer to the description of his suicide, but he stopped in a fit of coughing. The mere physical disruption in the speech was not enough for terror, it was the black ichor that flowed out from his mouth. Describing it as flow was not an exaggeration, at least 3 cups of black liquid spilled onto the stage from a painful sounding series of course hacks.

 

Cecil B. Watts continued his speech, unconcerned with the puddle of ichor, now a black circle visible to all those in the front row. Their faces contorted in revulsion as they held their noses and began standing up to leave.

 

Cecil B. Watts seemed to not notice and continued. However now as he spoke black flecks of ichor sprayed from his mouth into the crowd. His voice began to grow louder and stage hands began walking slowly from off stage with towels and confused faces.

 

The next few mins were a solid wall of high magnitude terror. People screamed in fear, some ran in panic, waves of anxiety could be seen in the pale faces of followers. The black ichor flowed out of Cecil B. Watts like a waterfall and as the stage hands tried to drag him off stage, his body collapsed and a black mist rose up as the sound of his voice began to echo in the auditorium. The local mist turned into a creeping fog, the ichor could be heard sloshing under the falling feet of the stage hands. His voice turning from discernable words into one long drawn out vowel sound, a great bellow issued through the auditorium as the black fog descended over the screams of the contorted mob.

 

I managed to escape by clawing my way over some wheelchair bound hopeful who had coming seeking a miracle of some kind. I had pushed them over and used the wheelchair as a step to tear myself free of the screaming mass. The mass that I had barely been able to separate myself from had become locked in place. They were unable to free themselves from the clutching hands and arms of those behind them. The great bellowing voice that was heard over head only amplified the terror of a rolling black fog that had begun to consume all sources of light in the auditorium.

 

The cameras and feeds watched as silent portals for the world to see a black void swallow those caught in the blacker fog. The bellowing voice of Cecil B. Watts continued as the dominate sound, towering over those caught on the other side of the blackness, their screams drowned out by the voice that I can only try and describe as the voice of a great cavern suddenly being filled with a moan of a gigantic beast sloshing around in that black ichor. It was a long unending note riding the last moments of a dying creature dissolving into silence.

 

Eventually the moan stopped, the black fog cleared and the few survivors looked at each other in desperate pleading that what they just witnessed wasn’t real. We waited and watched, half expecting a Hollywood cast or crew to come out and clean up the black ichor. However, the missing people told us otherwise. All those that had been trapped in the black fog were no longer seen, no bodies, no clues, completely vanishing from the auditorium.

 

The smell dissipated as well, and soon the certainty of the mundane returned. We told the police and media our stories countless times over the next few months.

 

I try not to think back to those last crazed conversations and speeches of Cecil B. Watts and wonder if there is something to those observations of metaphysical sewage, that change is some decaying river. I dwell on it little these days, trying my best to not concern myself about the events and the cosmic mechanisms that conjured that physical darkness. If there really is power in positive thinking then there is also power in negative thinking and all I can do now is not think about any of it anymore. I fear that any descent into critical observation of such bizarre events will swallow me up in the black fog of dying optimists.

The Inferno Conductor:

 

Music is the lifeblood of a great many creative souls. It is more essential than oxygen at times. When the world comes down in a suffocating curtain and the doors are all locked in frantic paranoia, music is there. It really doesn’t matter what the genre or style is, music keeps me alive.

 

I personally have always had a great love of music. When my wife died the music of her funeral echoed in my dreams for years, there is no substitute for the transcendental experience of immersing yourself in an emotion. When you are submerged or drowning in the pits of grief you have to find the music to bring you out of it.

 

Sometimes music takes you deeper into the feeling, it focusses your pain, and it binds your wounds by bringing you to your knees. There are a few songs that did this for me before my wife died but now the play list is quite extended. I think there were maybe 6 songs before my wife died and about 23 after.

 

There is nothing more captivating then utter submersion into a song. You can feel the tide rising and when it is neck deep the tears start flowing. Buckets later you feel washed up on some island wishing to be down in the dark again. Music is my second spine and without it I long ago would have joined my wife in the greater blackness.

 

I have seasons tickets to the symphony and use them every chance I can.

 

I am going to see the conductor and great composer Ligvig Von Barret. One of my favorite composers, not only for her fantastic compositions but also her illicit and reclusive lifestyle. Ligvid has been surrounded by occult rumors, scandalous affairs and even a heart transplant. She carries her turbulent life into a towering passion. She once collapsed from exhaustion during a performance, a strained exhibition of maniacal disorientation.

 

Well needless to say I am a fan, and am supremely looking forward to seeing her this weekend at the Grand Royale Theatre.

 

I have remained relatively chaste for the event. I have starved myself of music, slating my thirst for the premium vintage. I have tried to enjoy silence as much as I could, thinking in anticipation of the coming experience. They say that appetite is the best spice. This feels certainly the case, my figurative mouth waters at the taste of public music. Whether it is a grocery store playlist or a friend’s car stereo, my brain cries out for the life blood that I have become accustom to.

 

For 3 days I have fasted, my symbolic sacrifice has begun to haunt my dreams. I have felt old songs rising up in the swampy lands of pleasant slumber. From that peaceful state I have shaken myself awake, angry at myself for coming close to breaking this spiritual fasting. I am resolute and will not be undone by dark desires of soulful indulgence.

 

Now the event approaches, the car is parked and the people begin their ritual shuffle into the auditorium to witness of sorcery of Ligvig Von Barret.

 

She is clad in black, her makeup is dotted in tribal inspiration, her fingers tipped with elongated nail extensions. The cadence of her movement is intentional and precise. We all watch with eager eyes and hungry hearts.

 

She bows and raised a thin clawed hand with a silver wand. The cellos start in a slow march as she waves them through with impeccable timing. The smaller strings join in to begin the melancholy journey. With each measure there seems to be an invisible string pouring out from the stage, it winds and slithers to my seat. I can feel it begin to work its way into my starving heart.

 

I sit transfixed in submission. I bow to the crooked procession, taut in hearing and stiff as a clay pot. As a vessel I am filled with the beauty of the music. It pours into me from the small vibrations of each of the instruments. Ligvig Von Barret’s hands and arms are crooked creatures convulsing in some unseen calligraphy that only the musicians can understand. They stare up at her in obedience.

 

The beauty and satisfaction is heavenly, a divine hunger is fulfilled and tears line the edges of my face as I watch in adoration.

 

In my satiation I perhaps missed the change in tempo or the transition of movements. I noticed that I was becoming irritated as some subtle discordance began taking root. Perhaps in my glassy eyed stupor I missed form keystone measure that carried the beauty, however the moment had passed.

 

Now the symphony seemed to creep into an off tempo dirge. I watched closely and Ligvig Von Barret’s movements still directed with surgical precision the meter of the musicians. The sounds of beauty were taking on a distortion that I could not place with my ear. I shifted in my seat, uncomfortable with the growing dirge that seemed to swell into a funeral march with a beat that set me spinning with some nostalgic nausea.

 

I sat there for a few more minutes, queasy with confusion. I watched closely to others which seemed as glassy eyed as I had been a few moments ago. It appeared as though I alone suffered this itching dissatisfaction. I gathered myself and hoped to find relief perhaps in the hallway for a breath or two.

 

In the hallway the music continued loudly in my brain, its impact was undiminished by the change in proximity. I nervously shuffled to my car hoping to find shelter in some barriers between me and the growing madness that I could hear loudly in my head.

 

The car offered no solace and I sat in the driver’s seat for some time with my hands pressed hard into my ears. Frenzied panic rose up as the funeral march continued its advance into my brain. Then the flashes of light began.

 

Before my eyes stood a great fire with rising tongues of violent blue and purple flames. The roar of this fire drowned out my thoughts. I could only look with unwavering focus into a brilliant heat, a furnace of awesome magnificence. The great fire churned and snapped into swirls of eyes and hands, each taking their turn rending my screams from my heart.

 

It felt like years of painful evisceration of heat as the funeral music fell like a hellish waterfall through me. It was then that I saw it, I saw the source of the fire.

 

It stood before me a great giant of a creature, with clawed hands made of molten music. Its eyes were crescendos of flame with deep black holes of void between the turbulence. The creature focused those two black pits into me and with a single thought impaled me on the sound of the roaring fire.

 

I awoke hours later in the parking lot, drenched in sweat and small burns on my hands and face. I was grateful for a moment of peace but there was an empty hole in me now. I have never felt something so intense, something so close to a divine experience that a new hunger grew inside.

 

To this day I have sold everything, done anything to see the great Ligvig Von Barret. Each time the great flame has burned me and I can only ask for more.

Doctor Duality’s Dialectical Dissertation #3:

 

There is a particular metaphysical hubris that assumes that positive thinking about something changes the universe. The new age term for this is called “manifesting” which means if you can focus on something you can leverage the power of positive thinking to change the course of events outside of your mundane control.  This is often illustrated in the phrases like: The universe sent me here,   or perhaps: The universe has a plan! Even Allan Watts said: “You are the universe experiencing itself.”

 

Not so long ago humanity tried to negotiate with the universe, throwing living human beings into volcanos, offerings to the unseen, attempts to placate, bribe or otherwise influence the world around us. Of course in retrospect we learned that volcanoes have little need for virgins and hurricanes care little for incense. Upon testing the impacts of ritualized thinking or symbolic ceremony, we have come to learn that the universe cares little for our human values. Our human needs are not prioritized over whatever else the universe is doing. There is nothing that we have learned about volcanos to suggest that human sacrifice has any effect on the volcano itself, no matter how much we think about it.

 

Inversely science and technology have been considered pragmatic, they address challenges of the human experience. Ideas like moving your belongings from one place to another, building bigger and better shelters for the growing number of people, or predicting rains when planting crops. No one has grown better crops by positive thinking. If they successfully could, positive thinking would have been industrialized long ago.

 

Consequentially those predicting and preparing for a harvest have been rewarded with better prediction information to survive in greater numbers. The consequences of no prediction or planning is illustrated in a children’s book called “The Ant and the Grasshopper”.  

 

Before I continue please let me do my best to describe consciousness. Without consciousness there would be no ability to think positively, more precisely: Imagining consequences in favor of a particular perspective.

 

Consciousness is the software program of evolved biological creatures, it allows them to create 3d rendered worlds inside their brain hardware. A dog can imagine running when his owner suggests “a walk”, human beings imagine scenarios of things like home-invasion, war, winning tons of money or other such fantasies. Our imagination software is applied from everything to the constellations in the night sky to the scenarios of a lover arriving late at night from the bar. We are bound up in the imagination of the world around us.

 

Consciousness gives us this ability to imagine these scenarios in our head and sometimes the scenarios happen. We imagine getting a new job, often applying to many at the same time. We may sit and imagine working at all of those places and when we get a call back (or not at all) one of those imaginations becomes true. Of course actually working at the place is nothing like our imaginations beforehand.

 

For the sake of brevity I will continue under the assumption that most of the scenarios of our imaginations simply never happen, that our brain hardware doesn’t have the space to record all the details of imaginations that never happen.

 

Our consciousness is also applied to consequences. We may find ourselves on the wrong side of gun barrel, in an unknown place or witnessing a meteor shower on a beautiful night. We turn our brain software on and imagine scenarios of how and why these experiences happen.

 

We can answer this question of consequence by connecting events of the past to the events of the present and make a mentally rendered scenario inside our brains. We remember that we signed up to join the armed forces and perhaps that is why we are on the business end of a gun. We remember buying a plane ticket or driving to a place to conclude how we ended up where we are. Our brain hardware storing information on events on the past for future prediction.

 

However when faced with an event with no previous information human beings aim their consciousness software program into the darkness and take a shot. If you knew nothing of space or physics then the experience of a meteor shower would have no hindsight to influence an imagination. Anyone’s story would work. The meteor showers could be an omen that the universe will kill a king soon (a solid bet since kings drop like flies) or perhaps the great consciousness of the universe is telling human beings that there a reason to be in one place over another.

 

These guesses and imaginations of the unknown can be read in the books of religion, philosophy, psychology and gamblers. There is simply no end to guesswork of what the universe is or what it wants with us.

 

There is comfort in thinking of the universe being orderly, with mechanical descriptions, in which the purpose of us getting a new job is due to some design or intention. We may even transpose our intentions of getting a job into the universe itself. After all we are part of the universe, at least some part of the universe that intends to get a new job.

 

The fallacy of this is that a small part of a thing does not make up the entirety. Our bones may be made of star dust, but star dust is not made of bones. Bones are abstractions, mental vapors completely dependent on our imaginations and explanations of the particular world we live in. Those explanations will not convince stars, nor convince any other part of the universe. We are trapped under the tides of consequences, eddies of force that have no consideration for our abstracted well-being or some clandestine design of what we should be, some noble purpose etched into fates of our lives. Any investigation outside of our imaginations is met with the monstrous opaque void of non-things.

 

Of course these observations have little persuasive weight with the traffic court judge for my speeding ticket. I was found firmly responsible for the speed of my vehicle.  No amount of positive thinking alleviated the numerical impact on my bank account.

A Moment of Silence:

 

Ruby hated the 4^th of July. She would put on a grimace and her thin lips would downturn at any mention of the holiday. Her father fought in WW2 and she knew all about the American Revolution, she had nothing against the US of A. She hated fireworks.

 

Ruby didn’t have pets to transpose her dislike for loud noises, she gladly complained about noise. She didn’t care much for pets in general, they were needy parasites, little ignorant creatures that just gave her more choirs. The 4^th of July was her least favorite holiday, the heat, the sickening display of family get-togethers.

 

Fireworks in all their grand visual delight were an offense to her ears. They echoed around in her head, irritating her in the kind of way that she would grind her teeth. She had lost more than a few teeth in this manner, adding to the uneasiness of her grimace.

 

Ruby also had a hole in her head, a figurative place were anything was chewed up with the spaghettification her black-hole heart. She had no love for her fellow man and in general wished that humanity had one neck that could be slit. Ruby had long ago given up any consideration for happiness or peace, the hole in her head just shredded it with a magnificent gravity.

 

This 4^th of July was different, she was determined to block out the world. She tried every year to sound proof her house, she bought expensive insulation, designer headphones with the latest noise cancellation technology. It was never enough and besides, she hated headphones.

 

This 4^th of July she had risked a heavy investment in a new technology. It was based on 2014 experiment that resulted in something called a “Dumb-hole” a black hole of sonic qualities. The salesman promised absolute silence. This was exactly what she was looking for. She signed all the wavers, set the delivery and waited for the sophisticated machine to arrive at her doorstep.

 

The night time was filled with dreams of the muffling machine. The promise of a quiet 4^th of July was enough to ease her grimace.  She spent a large portion of her imagination thinking of all kinds of uses for the muffling machine. Maybe she could take it to an airport? A church or sports game? The impotent red faces of those unable to shout or make noise, they could be silenced and their objection silenced equally.

 

The next week the machine arrived. The packing plastic overflowed her garbage can. She feverishly assembled it as quickly as she could. The muffling machine was about as large as a typical refrigerator. A sleek black monolith of promise. A single cord extended out the back and a single tiny power button became illuminated once the cord was plugged in.

 

Ruby spent the afternoon reading the caution manual. It warned multiple times not to turn it on near civilized areas, the reach was estimated to be about 2 miles in diameter. This of course pleased Ruby to no end, the cautions were a pleasant conformation of her night time fantasies.

 

Ruby waited until the 4^th of July, content to keep the machine off for the time being. She wanted no complications to prevent this 4^th of July being silenced. The idea of being discovered was something could easily become a complication. She woke up early and prepared the machine, double checked all the components and crossed her fingers.

 

The illuminated button was pushed at 10:00pm on the 4^th of July. The first fireworks were being lit, the recreational explosions started their irritating march into Ruby’s brain. The machine whizzed and whirled a moment then fell silent.

 

Ruby wasn’t sure if the machine was working at first, she cursed herself for indulging such a fantasy. Then she realized that her words could not be heard.  She tried shouting, screaming, banging pots together and not a single noise was heard. The ambient noise started to dissipate over the next hour. Soon there was a total silence over her house.

 

Soon the muffling machine began silencing her neighbor’s house and the neighbor’s next to them. This suffocating silence continued to grow until the 2 mile limit. Bewildered neighbors began to panic, they ran outside screaming voiceless screams. They tried to call 911, only to be unable to hear or speak to anyone. They started their soundless cars and began driving away.

 

Once they hit the 2 mile limit the edges of sound would creep back into their brains. They often came out of the umbrella of noise cancellation by babbling their thoughts out. Their brains were not able to cope with the source of unknown silence of Ruby’s muffling machine.

 

Ruby of course sat and watched fireworks on her soundless television. She turned the machine off on the 5^th of July. No one knew it was her and the muffling machine. She would use it every 4^th of July. Every time she did the neighbors thought they were going crazy and their voiceless screams went unheard.

 

Year by year Ruby terrorized her neighborhood with silence, she considered it an appropriate payback for a lifetime of cluttered noise that had ground her teeth out.