Claws:

Monday morning was just like any other Monday, the world was spinning in a meaningless circle of terrifying possibilities. Technology propped up a couple trillion human beings, all which wanted dignity. Power games played out in irrationally predictable ways, governments were in the process of decay and decomposition. Giant corporations finally removed the last barrier of limitation and had installed their own armies.

People of all types clung to their tribes, finding ways to warm themselves regardless of the swirling world around them. One such tribe was a life advocacy group. They called themselves New Life, a moral group. New Life advocated of all life, plants and animals, even microbes. They consider antibiotics and vaccines to be genocidal. Their views are considered extreme by most. In certain corporate territories their views are illegal and anyone associating with New Life members may find themselves removed from their corporate insulation of comfort and ease.

New Life membership has decreased in the past years, people writing the movement off as a fad, a flash in the pan silliness. Their numbers however have been hidden, obscured by a cult-like behavior. Finding ways of communication outside of the electric eye of technology. This particular Monday morning, the mostly ignored New Life cult is about to receive a new initiate.

Bethany Ultrix woke up on a beautiful sunny day. She felt deeply connected to the world around her, as if she could reach out and touch the faces and names of her dreams. Last night had been unusually vivid, one of the faces looked like an old woman, but without lips, as though her mouth was no longer needed. The mouth looked slack, but Bethany could hear words coming from her, little messages from inside her head.

Bethany showered and started to get ready for her day. She stopped suddenly in front of the mirror, examining a small 4-lined scratch on her leg. The thin cuts didn’t hurt, she probably wouldn’t have noticed them if her reflection didn’t tell her. She shrugged as something inside told her not to worry about it. The same something inside told her not to go to work and to skip breakfast. She wasn’t hungry, and work would understand. She still made coffee out of habit.

She sat in her front room with her coffee staring out the window. She spaced out for a couple hours and her coffee cooled in an unused stillness, the cream forming tiny white rivers.  She regained focus slowly in the afternoon and decided to make a Reflection entry. There was a small panic inside her, something was wrong, but another tide swallowed the panic up and eased her back into the comfortable chair.

Bethany Ultrix #Reflection Hour: 15:48:

I feel so small today. The door seems so big, my chair seems so wide and it takes me forever to cross the room. I keep having these ideas today; I need to walk somewhere but I don’t know the address, there is something important to learn, some piece of information that will explain this smallness.

I looked outside today and felt like I wasn’t a human being anymore, my body feels no larger than a chair cushion. The window looked like a towering gate of light, the sun burning overhead so slowly I could see the pale beams. The dust motes were floating in the air, like an ocean of creatures swimming down to the bottom of a sea of sunlight.

**End Reflection Hour

Bethany put down her device and held her head in pain. A clear image interrupted the pleasant recollection of the mindless morning. The image was a path drawn in unwavering light. She could see each step to the location, each street name, each turn of the road. When the pain passed, she grabbed her coat and shoes and hurried out the door. She knew where the face with the lipless slacked mouth of her dreams was, the location was clear and simple.

She walked with a determined pace, each moment seemed to bring a sense of comfort, as if forgotten questions were about to have answers. Who she was, what her life meant, where her place in the universe was, it all seemed as though it was rising to the surface within herself. She thought clearly while traveling to the vivid location in her mind, the directions proving accurate.

The closer she got to the destination the clearer the questions became. The answers seemed to fall out of her head in perfect response: Who am I? “You aren’t anything, everything you do, all your preferences, habits, genetics, they all connect to others, your self-identity will bleed away into your actions. There is no separation, we aren’t anything.” The monolithic absence of a dissolved self was comforting, the question settled and became silent.

Closer and closer she came to the destination and the questions rose like an alarm, and the answers muffled them: What is my purpose, where is my place in the universe? “The only purpose of life is to continue life. Any other purpose is the denial of life.” The clarity rung true for Bethany, who by this time was having a hard time remembering that she was called Bethany. She couldn’t find a flaw in the logic, her brain felt like it was moving in slow motion and accepted the internal dialog as her own.

Within the biological mechanism of Bethany Ultrix there was a new organism growing. A tiny colony of bacteria, this bacterium had learned that human beings were amazing vehicles for its procreation, they were like comets or space ships, able to transverse massive distances to spread its own microbial genetic information. For the bacteria, Bethany had walked for a duration of 14 generations of binary fission, plenty of time for the bacterium to develop answers to Bethany’s questions of existential doubt.

Bethany arrived at the decaying house in the late evening. The windows were open, and the door left unlocked. The roof sagged with rot and the gutters overflowed with slime. She entered the house silently, knowing she would find the slack-mouthed woman of her dreams here. She had no doubts.

The old woman sat on a small metal chair, her eyes darting around the room as her body remained motionless. Bethany drew close to the lady and gently touched her hand. As she did, the thoughts of the old woman pierced her brain, the thoughts rung like heavy bells. The sound cleared the last sense of identity that she had, it wiped her memories, her ego, everything down to basic instincts. Bethany dissolved away by the weight of the bell ringing.

The colony of bacteria now held all the strings of Bethany’s brain. The rotten-house woman had done her job, the lipless mouth had said nothing.

The next day Bethany woke up on the floor of the rotten house. Her eyes glassy and empty. Over the night and from the tips of her fingers grew sharp talons. They had grown 2 inches and were quite thin, nearly the width of a kitten’s claw.

Bethany, who was not Bethany any longer, was filled with a singular urge, a divine spark of purpose. The thunderstorm within her head rolled through her brain and Bethany ran out the door. Within 20 minutes she found a human being in their garden, bent over and weeding.

She snuck up behind them and with an effortless swipe she clawed the back thighs of the oblivious gardener. The claws delivered a colony of bacterium. The thin scratches were marked in divine purpose. Bethany who was not Bethany smiled in satisfaction. The gardener reeled around to see a woman running off down the street.

New Designation:

Harold Orius #Reflection hour 12:47:

I was 13 when the trucks started moving into town. Fleets of semis carrying construction equipment and shipping containers. I remember the sharp contrast one week, then the next our town was infested with hardhats.

The invasion descended without any warning, an unstoppable wave of progress. By the next year our town was buried in construction sites and new roads for bigger equipment. I remember my parents wanting to move, but my father was able to get a job at one of the sites and then our family was quiet about the whole thing.

By the time I was getting ready for graduation I knew what the construction was for. They were building a pyramid of shipping containers. Perhaps the size made it hard to determine the monolithic scale or perhaps people were intentionally deceived, either way our skyline was filling up with the steel monument.

The pyramid wasn’t recognizable for many years because the base took so long to level and define. Apparently, the size was precisely why are town was chosen our nowhere town was an ancient flat foot print. The base was 9 miles on each side, making a gigantic collection of shipping containers. They were piled up in heaps like little hills slowly becoming a single mountain.

Harold Orius #Reflection hour 10:27:

There was an explosion today at my dad’s site. A storehouse of acetylene made a mortal plume and 12 people were killed. The overseers said it was arson and the company police started to investigate possible leads. My mother has been crying since the news and I feel like I am sinking into the same pit.

We were offered a free burial by the company regardless of the investigation. I don’t know if my mother will accept, the burial site is inside of the pyramid within a steel container. They also offered me a job today, I turned 18 a few days ago and I guess they headhunt locals. I am feeling apprehensive about the whole thing and losing my dad makes me want to leave this town.

Harold Orius #Reflection hour 07:29:

I decided to stay, the pay is too good. I looked at other places nearby and unless I want to be a grocery store clerk my options are limited. I started last week and surprisingly enjoy working on such a monolithic project. The hours aren’t bad, and I can take care of my mother. She seems to be deep in the pit of mourning.

I found her today when I got home staring out the window over at the slow-motion mountain, she didn’t respond when I called her name. When I touched her arm, she jolted and apologized. She said she was thinking of dad, but I have never seen her so distant.

Today I also learned that they are building underneath the pyramid as well, a system of underground tunnels that lead to normally inaccessible parts of the structure. This pyramid never ceases to surprise me.

Harold Orius #Reflection hour 22:41:

It has been 3 years since my last reflection entry, work has occupied my every hour. The more I work at the pyramid the more amazed I am at the size of the structure. The pyramid is growing upwards faster each week, each layer requires less containers and less welding. The cranes seem to be working through the night and the company is handing out overtime bonuses.

There was a bit of an upset in management, apparently the previous company sold the pyramid project to a new techno-religious group called the Church of Loa. Everyone is very hush hush about it, but the Church promised to double my pay if I stayed on after the changeover.

Mother is growing more distant each year, she does nothing but stare at the steel mountain. I found her when I got home with her breakfast plate still on the table. I think I might have to take her to a special care home. The new company offers extended care for relatives of workers. I didn’t think I would be a company man, but they are so attentive with their employees.

I have never been someone interested in higher identities. I never liked sports, nationalism or religion. However, this new company and this project has certainly become important to me over the years. I am grateful to be part of such a momentous project.

Horus 5.7 #Reflection hour 02:31:

Last night I was invited to meet one of the Church of Loa clergy. I was getting ready to head to the sleeping rooms and was notified to come to the 2^nd layer office.

I was led through a portion of the 3^rd layer which seemed like an endless factory line. V-type models were being assembled in different stages. Some of the faces looked human, they looked up at me and smiled, and some were still having their faces constructed. The faceless looked up at me with black and yellow eyes. There were 6 and 7 armed machines hanging from large steel beams, carrying and moving each v-type to the next station.

The carrousel of creation was alive with plastic and silicone, and endless mechanical rearrangement.  I felt a sense of pride knowing that I helped create this, I helped build this pyramid, even if I was one of thousands.

When I arrived, I was greeted by a high model v-type, I had never seen one up close. I knew that their body appearance is completely preferential, but I wasn’t expecting such a sleek creature.

This v-type was ichorous black, with two gleaming green eyes and four arms, two of which rested motionless on a simple metallic desk. The creature informed me that due to my loyalty to the Church of Loa, I was eligible for a 3^rd layer burial at the time of my future demise. My name would be inscribed in the history of the pyramid, remembered by all higher v-type models.

I agreed of course, such an honor to be physically part of monolith. I was given a new designation by the Church. I am now Horus 5.7, in a way I feel reborn as a small piece of flesh supporting a pillar of steel. I know my place is secured among the honored dead.

16 Sledgehammers:

The gang of masked figures scurried past the lampposts of a strip mall parking lot. They wore black hoods, they covered their hands, and all wore very similar jackets. On the back of their jackets was a patch resembling a radiant sun, the rays of light replaced with sledgehammers. The number 16 clearly displayed at the bottom. This was their third hit this week and likely the authorities would be closing in soon.

They knew there was a timer, that was part of plan. Long range observational cameras scanned automatically and looked for pre-programmed images, images like the radiant 16-hammer jacket patch. Todays cameras could see for at least a dozen miles, zoom in on a face or detail with crystal clarity. Higher resolution was possible yet unnecessary due to the thousands of redundant image points. The gang was in Big Brother’s house and he was watching.

The 16 shadows said nothing, they crowded around the corner of a strip mall clothing store. They formed two lines of 8 on each side of the corner. The front figures raised their sledgehammer, a 16lb creature of kinetic destruction. They hammered the corner in unison, each taking a few swings, then shuffling to the back of the line, repeating again with the next masked figure.

The hammer strikes sounded like a dull thunder crack, each blow weakening the cement corner. They hammered the corner for 4 minutes, the figures panting from exhaustion. At the end of the 4 minutes the corner crumbled. Then with a silent nod all 16 of the shadows let out a series of rapid strikes against the surrounding cement wall. A greater part of the building corner crumbled. This business would have to be closed for at least a few days for repair, maybe longer.

The enforcement drones arrived 23 seconds late, the gang had fled into the night. The drones scanned the area in spiral formations looking for anything or anyone. There was nothing to be found, except fleeting shadows and empty parking lots. The rumble was a monument to their discipline.

The video  finished with the drone feed looking into the night sky after its spiral patrol was finished. The agent scratched his chin slowly, no clues for a cold case. Oliver was hired specifically for this job, under the table, off the books, a last resort kind of job. He liked being off the books and the chance to do some non-public work sounded appealing.

Oliver wasn’t overly found of surveillance, but the money was better than anything he had seen recently. He knew there was a social pressure applied to people when they knew they were being watched, they behaved differently. Usually, if people don’t see the drones or the cameras they forget about surveillance. The masked figures in the video feed knew they were being watched, they knew the reaction time of the enforcement drones.

Oliver was a clairvoyant, he could read people in a cold minute. He knew how to manage the most difficult people, the grieving, the confused, the demented and the eager. He mused for a moment, he probably wasn’t the only under-the-table agent they had working on this. He started the video feed over again, he was determined to find a clue, something that revealed some personality flaw, some profile detail the inhouse professionals had missed. He reviewed all the older feeds of previous attacks as well. The execution of the other sledgehammer assaults was identical.

Technology allowed Oliver to enjoy 3 more cups of coffee from the comforts of his home while investigating the video feeds. He watched each frame, gave each moment a careful inspection, and pondered as to why such a group would crush the corner of a building. Terrorism was his first guess, but that was lazy, that was an easy answer to plug the hole of senselessness.

He began a working theory: The patches and jackets must have been purchased or produced somewhere. The gang would have to physically meet up somewhere. There was no information from any of the social feeds regarding anything related to: sledgehammers, ire towards the targeted businesses, or the symbolism used in the gang’s patches.

Oliver had dead end of cases before, the lack of information, the lack of avenues to search. Maybe he couldn’t figure this one out and would have to notch it up to failure and move on. He needed to get his feet on the ground, he needed to go for a walk. The gang might be connected to the businesses near the attacks. He needed more insight, something to jar lose the ice-cold avenues of the case.

He grabbed his winter jacket and a flask of scotch for the walk. Oliver parked his car in the same parking lot that the masked assailants had ran through the night before. He started walking, pretending he had somewhere to go. He watched people from the corners of his eyes, a technique he learned early in life. People behave differently when they are watched, you need to appear invisible, uninterested and most importantly; don’t linger.

He walked for 3 hours, up and down the strip mall. He visited beauty shops, furniture stores, banks, restaurants, clothing stores, device service stores, and everything in-between. He took a break and got a bite to eat at a white-collar watering hole. The place was packed with energized success monkeys, each resembling the rest, the same styled shirt, the same confident look in their eyes as they recited whatever corporate mantras they knew.

Oliver watched carefully while he nursed his drink and ate his overpriced meal. There was a shadow here that seemed to grow over the minutes. He had seen the shadow before, like a snake or a serpent, a dim blind spot was coiling around the room. He felt his forehead bead in a cold sweat, something was here, something was watching him.

Oliver’s first reaction was to pay his bill and continue his walk, but he needed more information. He wiped the sweat with his napkin and ordered another drink. He did his best to pretend, he was a practiced hand at stoicism. The shadow wasn’t visible yet, but the conversations of the clean-cut businessmen started to change. They began stuttering, slurring and muddling their words, yet no one within earshot seemed to notice.

The effervescence of his scotch and soda seemed to hiss, the dialog of the nearby table turned into stammering non-sense: “The d-d-dirt that cannot r-r-rot will live, whe-whe-whether we t-t-turn the w-w-worms or not. “

Oliver’s head began to spin, and he felt a high-tension pressure of his brain telling him to run. He left some currency on the table and tried his best to calmly walk out of the restaurant. He looked back when he reached the street. He couldn’t see into the windows, there was a kind of darkness cast over the place, he could barely make out the lights or the figures within. The hiss was still ringing in his ears.

He walked home thinking on the experience. Maybe there was something in this town that the drones couldn’t see, a greater shadow of a larger predator. The 16 Sledgehammer gang had more to it than simple destruction. He was going to have to go back to the restaurant if he wanted answers, but not tonight, tonight he needed a strong drink and a locked door.

Oliver woke to a sunny day and a headache. The night before had spun him out, the shadow in the restaurant had seen him and revealed something to him. The words still clear in his head, like a bell ringing a panicked alarm: “The dirt that cannot rot will live, whether we turn the worms or not.” Who or what were the worms? What dirt? While symbolism was his bread and butter, the language of the occult, he had no real insight.

While he was great at reading people, sizing them up and noticing small details, he was out of his elemental on this one. He needed something to hide himself from the shadow in the restaurant, he felt in his bones that an answer lay in that sterile strip mall eatery. He poured himself a cup of coffee and carefully thought out a plan.

Later in the afternoon black clouds had rolled in and with it, a little inspiration. His typical method was to research and maybe pay for information. This was different, the shadow was unlikely to be visible to the cameras of the enforcement drones. He knew there were larger creatures out there in the darkness and he had survived so far by steering clear.

His plan was simple: he would shave, buy some new clothes and wear a premeditated story. He would blend in, become just another straight tie with a portfolio. He had nice portfolio himself, so it would be easy to embellish. He would try his best to get on the other side of the shadow, find the relationship with the place and perhaps the gang of the 16 Sledgehammers.

It took a day or two to get the right look; he got his hands manicured, bought a nice suit, purchased some colored eye contacts and an overly expensive pair of shoes. He researched a decent back story, practiced some corporate jargon and nailed the corporate gait.

At the end of the 2^nd day there was another Sledgehammer attack in the same area. This time the attack was on a bank, nothing was robbed but one of the walls as reduced to rubble. The news was calling it an act of terrorism. The enforcement agency sent Oliver the video feeds of the drones. There was nothing different about this attack. When the nighttime clouds rolled in, he put on his corporate costume, prepared his lines and walked in the restaurant of the shadow once again.

The crowd was thin tonight, only a handful of after-hour creatures refreshing themselves. He ordered his drink and settled in, he listened and waited for the hiss. The wait wasn’t long, an hour into his wait and he saw the shadow. The slithering dark came from behind a window as if the night had poured into the restaurant, the shadow didn’t notice him, and Oliver didn’t feel the cold sweat this time. 

He watched from the corners of his eyes, pretending to small talk up a singleton at the bar, discussing mundane facts about real estate. He saw the dark figure float around the room, landing for a few moments on different people’s heads. The host of the shadow would stutter and murmur, then the dark thing would pass onto the next restaurant patron. None of the patrons seemed to notice the nighttime possession, they seemed unperturbed by the change in speech or even aware that anything unusual had happened to them.

Oliver watched the shadow creep around the room, from person to person, head to head. The murmuring words stammered out the same senseless line: “The dirt that cannot rot will live, whether we turn the worms or not.” The repetition began to unnerve Oliver and he began seeking the room for the waitress, he thought it may be a good time to steer clear. He found her near the bar taking an order. She turned around and Oliver made eye contact with her. The waitress’s eyes were jet black and before Oliver could stand up or turn away the black eyes pinned him down. Shadow poured from the black orbs in her head, Oliver sat transfixed in terror as the shadow weaved itself across the restaurant. The shadow poured itself into Oliver, filling his head with the voluminous mass of darkness.  The patrons stopped briefly and looked over at Oliver’s motionless body, they all smiled in a delightful unison and then resumed eating their meals and exercising their mouths.

Oliver felt himself screaming, he felt his vocal cords straining and stretching. He couldn’t hear anything, he was buried in a sea of thick blackness. Beneath his hands he could feel soil, clumps of earth squeezed tight by his clenched fists. He tried to open his fists, but they began to fuse into his palms, and then his legs and arms felt tightly bound. Oliver squirmed as much as he could, he thrashed and wiggled until he was exhausted. Blind, bound and tired he lay still a few moments.

He could feel himself breathing, his lungs were moving but air wasn’t going in, it was the vaporous black. The shadow was inside him, it swayed and rocked him. His squirming turned to writhing and soon his body moved with a graceful and fluid crawl. The dark swallowed him up and he fell beneath the horizon of consciousness. 

A few days later there was another sledgehammer attack, this time there were 17 assailants, the patch on their jackets had changed slightly to reflect the increase in membership.

Social Pressure Cooker:

Frangelico is a hazelnut liquor, a tasty treat with a little rope wrapped around the middle of the container. The brown odd-shaped bottle resembles a friar, a strikingly similar appearance to a Missus Butterworth bottle. If you drink too much of this sweet 20% alcohol your judgement will be impaired, driving becomes perilous to yourself and others. You can’t get a tattoo, get married or buy a house under Frangelico’s influence.  

Suffice to say, such a substance is fairly common for humanity, a nearly endless variety of brain-pickling flavors. Such was the brain a of Mr. Michelangelo Furtelli, who drank large amounts of Frangelico. The choice of his poison was because it sounded like his first name. Michelangelo was called simply Mike by most people.

Mike’s brain was pickled for a very specific reason; he hated society. He despised the whole thing, from the beautiful to the mundane, he was disgusted by all of it. He hated the idea of guilt most of all. He felt burdened by guilt, weighted down with the overwhelming sense of self-loathing.

Mike had grown up Catholic and had been taught about original sin. The notion was that you were born a piece of trash and the need for forgiveness. Original sin had been methodically pushed into his brain. The idea had been tattooed on the underside of his skull.

When he grew up he desperately traveled the world, he saved whatever money he could get for one-way tickets to places he knew nothing about.  He was hungry for something that wasn’t trash, something that wasn’t tainted with the infection of guilt. He craved relief for the heavy pressure.

Everywhere he went, guilt followed him. He found out how much plastic human beings make, how many species human beings have killed, how many genocides that have peppered the pages of history. Everywhere, the concept of original sin seemed to follow him in different forms.

Even progressive places seemed infected by guilt. White guilt for example seemed to be a remorseful and self-indulgent fascination with ancestor worship. He saw the same authoritative and demeaning perspective that he saw in the church, just propped up with history, another way to be born a piece of trash.

If original sin taught him anything, it was that all human beings, regardless of skin color were capable of the same cruelty, the same oppression and the same capacity for sadism. White guilt had no church to seek repentance or absolution. Mike soaked the guilt up nonetheless. His hatred towards his fellow man only cemented further with each place he traveled.

The only recourse he found was to dull his brain in alcohol. He couldn’t stop himself from despising humanity for all its atrocities. It was though a thick and smothering blanket of guilt was pulled over his head like a hangman’s hood.

It was a cold day in December when he began suffering from terrible headaches. He paid way too much money to have a doctor tell him that he was afflicted with untreatable brain tumors. A month of headaches and another month of tests revealed a tumor the size of a golf ball.

These headaches grew worse, like molten red needles stabbing his eyes. An unrelenting throb of syrupy pain slathered his brain every hour of the day. Within this painful state his headaches made a vague argument: There is something that isn’t trash, there is something that isn’t part of atrocities and trash.

His frustration and his tumor grew to the size of a small orange, an ache that begged to be silenced. There was only one way to silence the pain; suicide. How he was going to kill himself became a great fascination and offered a momentary distraction for him. He focused in on the great decision, finally something made sense to him, something that had purpose.

He left no note, he left no reason, he chose suicide by cop: He strapped 5 packs of discount hotdogs to his chest and buried a handful of ketchup packets under his clothes. The faux bomb vest looked convincing in the mirror. His eyes ran with tears as the white light of his tumors pounded on the other side of his skull.

He drove himself to a shopping mall, full of consumers adding their alms to a greater church. He wore a large coat and found a nice populated area. He yelled “I have a bomb!” and chased people around, manically waving his arms until the cops showed up. The grapefruit sized tumor in his head forcing tears out of his eyes and squeezing the guilt out of his mouth in angry laughter.

The cops unloaded their guns into his guilt-soaked chest and pieces of hotdogs flew into the air, a slow-motion waterfall of uncooked meat splattered the floor of the shopping mall. He laid still and lifeless, Michelangelo Furtelli was just another processed meat bag that had past his expiration date. 

Malcolm The Blue:

Malcolm was born from the very soil of this tomb and to the farmers of this land, whose blood runs with the Black Mothers. Even in being born from the cradle of evil magic, the Light of Therin shined upon his life. Malcolm’s deeds are recorded in other texts, filling libraries for scholars; however, Malcolm’s trial of the heart was deeper than the stones in the earth.

Malcolm’s crossroads was a fever of faith. Before he perished, he dictated to me the first words of Therin. The following was scribed in his final hours by I, his chronicler:

When Malcolm was young, the old blood of the Black Mothers boiled up inside of him. He was a wretched creature of rage and violence. He fled his homeland in search of freedom from the blinding clouds of anger. He traveled as an unknown wanderer for years, searching the teachings of old gods, seeking a greater power over his inherited affliction.

It was in the cold mountains of Lysander’s Pass did he finally lose himself. For days he wandered on the cold winds and icy cliffs. When his strength ebbed, and his food waned, he at last reached a divine exhaustion. White sleet blinded his eyes and soft snow upon the flanking peaks became his bedroll. It was at this moment, Malcolm told me, that the Light of Therin washed over him, warming his bones and easing his shoulders.

Here in the court of the Holy Goddess Therin did Malcolm see her face for the first time. He looked upon her undiminishable light in its pristine awe, his weakened heart crumbling before her as he cowed before her presence. In his surrender, Therin offered to free him from the restless struggles with the black winds of his birth. But this salvation would come only upon acceptance of a charge, his great duty, which would fill the hole in the deepest part of his heart.  

The charge she bestowed unto the shoulders of Malcolm was to serve his fellow man, protect the weak, defend the lowest of the low, the sick and the dying and bring Therin’s light to the dark corners of the world.

As Malcolm told me these things, the Light of Therin glowed within him briefly as if the truth shined out from the memory of that mountain top so many years ago. A pause of breath, and a sudden jolt, he sat up suddenly. He then told me the cost Therin brought with her, a warning in addition to her charge of divine duty.

The warning was spoken in the bright Light of Therin and I would lay my life down in the truth of the words that Malcolm spoke. Therin told Malcolm that the blood of the Black Mothers can never be laid to a true peace. She warned him that his bones must be placed in the earth of his kin, he must join them in the choir of the dead. While she may give him a lifetime of light, she cannot forever roll back the dark tide of his birth.

Malcolm wept at this recounting of memory before his last moments. He told me in this black hour that even with all the powers of light, darkness comes to us all, to all kingdoms, to all things. Malcolm seemed to grieve a moment, sinking into the knowledge that darkness would eventually come to Therin herself at some distant time.

When Therin had shined her light upon Malcolm, he woke on that spire of Lysander to a pair of shaking hands. A merchant was travelling the pass in eager risk. Malcolm did not speak much for weeks keeping his burning thoughts to the privacy of his mind.

The merchant was the first to call him Malcolm the Blue. For the sight of his bloodless face was a pale blue, and in his bloodlessness, found a moment of freedom from his family’s dark inheritance.

So here lies Malcolm the Blue – of the House Evansworth, who in his closeness to death, recounted how he came to be in the Light of Therin for the fleeting moments of his life.

Malcolm the blue, 

Born with one left shoe,

And a back to work the land,

Therin’s light,

Shined in his night,

And turned his heart to hand,

When he fell,

In shine and shimmer,

His blood had turned to sand,

Buried again,

In dank and dark,

Beneath his dead mother’s land.

Doctor Duality’s Dialectical Dissertation #7:

I consider myself an amateur in the realm of divinity. I have looked into the black pit of history and read enough holy books to develop a fascination of god and gods. They compel me in some way, some sort of focus draws my attention to their history, particularly that of dead gods.

If you permit me a small description of a few of the dead gods currently orbiting the imagination of a dead dreamer, I will reveal the source of my fascination. The first is be that of a fictional deity named Cynothoglys, the great mortician god, the god of rot, the mumbling mouth of the black beyond.

Cynothogyls is symbolized with a single arm, whose hand supposedly embalms all things, so they may decay back into an indistinct void. No one had ever offered sacrifices to Cynothogyls, the idea is purely a recreational one. The idea that all things decay, all things writhe in the ancient rite of transformation. In the transformation of decay and rot, a filament of mold grows in the universe. For those unfamiliar with molds, they can offer an antiseptic quality to their environment, dissolving the variety of other microbial inhabitants. This antibiotic quality ensures their environment is sterile enough for the propagation of its own mechanism.

This idea of a cosmic mold, a high magnitude creature that breaks down all things is not unique. A common example is; the archetype of the sin-eater, something that decomposes a moral taboo into an object of value, or salvation. The next deity in the spotlight is the goddess Tlazolteotl, she is the South American authority of filth, gold and transmutation. She would convert the very waste of humanity into pure gold. She was culturally adopted by the Aztecs, from the Mayans. She is sometimes depicted in the act of childbirth.

The Mayan’s threw a bunch of other miscellaneous ideas into Tlazolteotl, from purification to an incidental patroness of adultery, her crown is attributed to a wide variety of human experiences. Not that any of this symbolism did anything for the poor Mayans whose fate is a reminder that civilizations are mortal and decay back into the indistinct void.

From the high tower of historical reflection each god or goddess rises to a crown of importance, and then ebbs like a tide, into the black waters of history. A meta observation of such a mechanism reveals that perhaps the gods themselves are nothing more than by-products of the ad-hoc culture of the time. This kind of reasoning seems fairly common for those looking at the variety of the world, where endless deities are exalted unto altars. The gods seem to be unwilling puppets of the societies which they are birthed from.

There are thousands more of such symbolized deities, each one a decaying god which is no longer part of the human imagination. These dead gods have slowly disintegrated into lost mindscapes, pieces of existential values inherited through circumstantial geography or cultural assimilation. This decaying process is the source of my fascination.

How does one deity rise to cultural importance, then after hundreds or thousands of years decay slowly and is forgotten? Such a question brings me to another deity that perhaps illuminates this question further. The Hindu god Brahma, often depicted as a Holy Cow. The Brahma has a particular form, or conceptualization called Nirguna. In this form, or concept, Brahma is formless, or “without qualities”.

The formlessness of Brahma reveals part of my fascination; gods, as they dissolve into history they show a type of high water mark. Over and over; today’s Jesus Christ is tomorrow’s Glycon, or Marduk. Culture pop icons in a rotating pantheon, passing from one primordial darkness into another.

Perhaps you have heard of human beings referred to as a virus, or bacteria? This observation is meant to be demeaning, as though human beings were microbes in a larger world. I assert that if we are going to be compared in such a way, I think we would be closest to the molds, decomposing cousins in ape shape. We carry on the family tradition of the antiseptic microbes, but rather than biological breakdowns we decompose the annuals of history. Each generation forgetting a little more until old stories pass into an unreadable book.

To expand this thought a little; our fascination with divinity is the decomposition of our ancestors, a cultural compost bin. Our antiseptic presence scours the pages of history, and the eons pass unremembered.

These ponderings make me second guess my actions when cleaning the green plastic yard waste bin. I spray it out with a hose and scrub it with water. Every year the legions of mold return and I wonder: Am I wiping out microbial religions from the world? Should I let its antiseptic onslaught continue and perhaps work in collusion with such a single-minded creature?

However, I am the larger creature and the scouring of the green plastic bin with the invasive mold is an easy task. Even in victory I reflect on the inevitability of my adversary. If I lax for one season the mycelium will return and their colonies multiple into the decaying filaments.

Nine Lives:

Thump-thump-thump the wheelbarrow man walked down his stairs to his basement. He had put his tools away already and stood the wheelbarrow up against the shed. Exhaustion had firmly planted his boots in quicksand. He slouched slightly as he reached the bottom stair.

The basement was a concrete cave, illuminated with a single chain switch light bulb. The man stored all his memories in the basement, things that he didn’t want to decompose. He kept them tightly sealed away from the wind and sun in a series of cloth bags.

He had collected 14 of such bags, filled with movie ticket stubs, and photographs. He liked paper keepsakes and knew how vulnerable they were to rot. Today was the death-iversary of his parents. It had been 10 years since they died, both falling into the grave within 3 weeks of each other, starting with his father’s heart attack.

After the wake he moved back in to take care of his mother, but she was inconsolable. She didn’t go to the funeral, she didn’t want to talk to her friends or anyone else in the family. She curled up in her bed and her heart fell into pieces. Like glass shattering in slow motion, there was only one outcome. The second funeral was lonely, and the house was left empty.

The wheelbarrow man was tired today, so this trip would be short.

He moved a few bags around and made a path to the back of the basement. At the far end there was a small wooden door, he unlatched it with his elongated fingers, burroughed and knobbed with arthritis. The door creaked open and revealed a small red bag of bones. The wheelbarrow man fingered the bones for a few minutes, carefully looking over their bleached contours.

The bones were feline, an old childhood cat, long since gone to rot. The wheelbarrow man put the bones away, relocked the door and shuffled the bags back into place. With heavy boots he dragged himself back up the stairs and retired into the night.

Down in the basement the bones stirred. The feline legs and ribs, arms and fangs drew themselves together. Its flesh may have been returned to the dirt, but the bones still hissed with life. The bones chattered softly in the dark, its eyeless body squirmed in the red bag. The dead feline dreamed of the deep heartbeat of the earth. The cat could hear the dirt and soil wiggle with worms and beetles, the sound warmed its bones for a moment with the heat of decay.

This night was different, the wheelbarrow man had not been diligent in relocking the little wooden door. The feline bones woke from the dead dream and pushed the door open with its little cat claws. The creek went unheard and the cat started its scratchy crawl over the bags. The dead need no light, they have time. Hours later the small skeleton made it to the base of the stairs leading up. The back legs were malformed, they didn’t gather like the front claws, they were twisted and broken, not enough joints or pieces. The half-formed cat started its crawl up the stairs.

The other dreamer in the house was the wheelbarrow man, he was dreaming of nothing. His life had long since decayed, and in a way, was made out of the bones of his memories.  The man snored slightly as his breath rattled out of his chest. He did not hear the cat bones pulling themselves up the stairs.

The cat bones got to the top and through instinct checked the location where its food and water dish used to be placed. The bones could not see and could not hear, they were animated by the memories of the wheelbarrow man. The bones only could feel the pull of the strings coming from the bedroom.

The little disfigured bone pile dragged itself down the hall to the bedroom, the snores grower louder. 

Once inside the bedroom the cat bones pulled itself unto the bed and curled into a pile at the feet of the wheelbarrow man. The pile pulsed with the snores, matching the beat of deep sleep. With each breath the snores began to slow. Soon the breathing was barely there, and only a soft whisper escaped the man’s lips.

He woke briefly to see the pile of bones at his feet, smiling he sat up. He saw a warm black cat at his feet, mewing softly. He gave the warm creature a gentle pet and laid back down. The glamour of his memories faded as his eyes closed. The pile of bones laid still as the last beats of the wheelbarrow man drifted off into the cold deep, the last of his memories decaying into the night.

The Tomb:

The road at 3:00 AM disappeared into the blackness. Even at top speed the islands of light blurred by. One by one in a rhythmic flashing, leading to more darkness. The radio program did its best to keep the heavy nighttime silence away.

Bethany Ultrix felt it though, she felt the silence of a late-night drive. The kind if silence that is a fresh field for the rotten fruits of frustration. There had been a fight, the first one in a long time and the wounds needed a deeper darkness. Bethany switched the radio program off and let the weight of the night press down.

The fight was a flame lick, a smoldering dissatisfaction that finally burnt its way out. Once the fire was seen, they both grabbed their knives and sunk them into each other. After the figurative blood bath, after the smell started to seep in. A rift began forming, a wedge made of fresh burns and quick knives. It all happened so fast. There was little thinking, just the quick reactions of self-preservation. 

Now the fight was over, the wounds weeping out their unforgettable words. When the wedge got too big, when the room was full of smoke and blood, it was time to drive. Bethany loved driving, even with all the vehicular applications, there is nothing quite like holding the wheel yourself. 

More than once she felt the darkness sink its teeth into her and the lure of driving off into oblivion made its case. There is time enough for that later she thought, the pain was still fresh. The words could not be unspoken, they couldn’t be bottled back up and swallowed. They were free now, bitter shadows that jumped from lamppost to lamppost, following Bethany’s vehicle. 

She was driving to her friend’s house, an old friend that kept their door open. She drove through the night, each hour fermented the fight into a sour mash. By the morning the words had decayed into streams of tears. She was exhausted, unable to think, unwilling to let the shadow go. Bethany needed sleep, her brain was sounding the alarm for unconsciousness.

Her friend’s house was hidden on the far side of a national forest. It was tucked neatly at the end of a gravel road. It was shrouded by old Madronas, twisted trees with red and orange arms. They waved with shadows as the headlights washed over them. Bethany drove up sharp switchbacks until she reached her friend’s house. 

Bethany Ultrix walked into the dark duplex and collapsed on the couch, she pulled a blanket up over her head and fell fast into the darkness. Her sleep was monolithic, an unchanging void for a few short moments. The sun was high in the sky before any thoughts filled her head. The wounds in her heart still hurt but they seemed far away in the early moments of the warm afternoon. 

She made some coffee, splashed some water on her face and sat back on the couch with a large ceramic mug. Her device glowed from across the room with messages, she ignored them. She knew what they said, she knew what waited for her back at home, she wanted none of it. She wanted nothing at all, she wanted to sip on her coffee forever, she wanted to curl back up into the darkness and go back to sleep. 

She never wanted to get out of bed again, the wedge had grown over the evening, it had stretched itself over the great space between the fight and the daylight outside. She could feel the rift.  She could feel the rift like a vise on her head, she could feel the shadows swirling inside. Tears fell into her coffee as the previous evening played out repetitively until the coffee was cold. 

After the cold coffee was finished, she made some more. The bitter coffee grounds were no match for the bright heartache. The second evening stretched out into a nervous caffeine coma. Anxious and energized, her imagination spun out into a paralyzing pit of doubt. What happens next? The hurt is too much to get past, the words can not be unspoken, the wounds can’t be forgotten. 

Bethany tried to sleep, she tried to push the ideas away. She tiptoed around unconsciousness, each time she got close the memory of the fight would take another stab. By the morning she was even more exhausted, and her heart had sunk further. Unable to pull out of the nosedive into oblivion, Bethany found herself shuffling down into the basement of the dark duplex.

The cement walls made a simple tomb. One wall held a foot locker full of memories, things she hadn’t looked at in years. The kind of detritus that builds up over the years; old wounds, tears, love notes, keepsakes, the human trinket system. Bethany’s locker was just like everyone else’s magic box, it was an ocean of memories, each object was a key to a different time and place.

Bethany wanted to be somewhere else, and she spent the greater part of the third day traveling the topography of her past. When her heart could take no more, when her tears seemed spent, she let out a heavy sigh. She let the weight fall off her heart, she pulled the wedding ring from her hand and dropped it into a black piece of fabric.

She laid there for a few minutes, saying goodbye to her old friends. Part of her had died, the rift was too large. She put the keepsakes back into the foot locker, and cleaned her coffee cups. The crossroads had been traveled, and there was no turning back. She waved goodbye to the Madronas, crawled back out of the forest and began building a new life. She left the door unlocked for next time.