The Face:

At first glance the face is not recognized, the mirror hangs on the wall unused. As many years pass the mirror is seen, the reflection mimicking the motions of familiarity. In those details startling features blossom from the formless, and the terror rolls in.

At the base of the reflection there is a neck. The neck strains up and over to show whatever muscles and skin unfold. The skin from under the chin hangs down in a soft curtain, partially draped down, as if the show was almost over. I am 70 and the waters of death are up to my neck, as if the depth was understood in linear progress. My life is 80% over, perhaps 15 years left, maybe 10. There is no guarantee, and the high-water mark only goes up. I can feel the waves cresting against my throat, taking a breath at a time. Even swallowing reminds me how close the water is, inching its way up, year after year.

I avert my gaze a moment, when did the end seem so close? Out of the corner of my eye I can see my ears. Those haphazard pieces of flesh on the side of my head, which don’t work as well anymore. I can hear the small whine of tinus, the scrape of the garbage truck and the cries of new children. Over time children’s voices have wormed their way deeper into my head. When I was younger their voices reminded me of life and progress, now are reminders of undeveloped assholes waiting for their turn to screw someone else over. They never change, they will turn into crawling adults who rationalize, justify their tantrums with socially acceptable logic. My ears would be better enjoyed if they heard nothing at all, neither the tinus or the children. The sounds of the waking world could all be thrown into a fire, leaving me a little silence.

My ears are covered with my hair, I don’t want to think about the noise, I wanted it muffled and far away. My hair tries, but it too is fading under the light of life. My hair is thinning, turning to straw and white whispers of sea foam. The waters of death have lapped up a frothy mass and left it where my locks have been. They used to curl in spirals of rich brown, the sunlight used to show the red glints of garnet. It has been a decade since those locks have been thrown on a pillow in the rites of beauty or joy.

Now my hair is cut short, barely above my ears, propped up in a style that turns my hair invisible, a non-descript orientation that no one ever notices. I have removed pictures of my younger hair form the apartment, no one will know I have changed, no one will see what has decayed.

My chin quivers a little as memories of my mother brushing my hair trickle down my face. Cut that memory, that goes to the fire too, it all must burn. My lips snarl a moment but hide themselves away before too much is revealed.

My eyes creep over the reflection, looking closely at the cracks, creases, and the scars of age. How many mornings and nights has this flesh endured, how many obviously bad decisions have they seen? I know bad is a highly subjective term, but in hindsight can I see their apparent waste, choices made from a seemingly authentic perspective. Were they really? How many decisions were due to need, or a belief in something to juggle the stress of something else? Doubt never stays down for long, it smolders and seethes, if I could throw that into the fire I would, but instead it crawls on my cheeks like a mask made of unredeemable choices.

I am the egoistical mayor, the negligent janitor and the ungrateful citizen of my own private no-where town. I don’t need a map, its right there in the mirror, my paper skin ready to burn completely.  

I can smell the fire, the smoke of a polluted thing on the embers. It isn’t hot enough for any noticeable conflagration, but I know its there. My nose tells me, which is rare, it says very little to me these days. It used to remind me of pleasant things, flowers and cakes, perfume and sweet nights of ease. I could close my eyes and travel to another time where the glamour of love rolled over the horizon like a multicolored sunset, waiting an extra moment with nothing but joy for the next day.

I don’t begrudge my loss of smell, I see my skin crack and rot and have no wish to add its smell to the experience. I pinch my hand and watch for a moment as it settles into a pile of folds. The soft paper, the thin and spotted covering looks like I have been sitting in this rotten death water for too long, pruned and glistening.

When I was younger my dreams and ideas danced on my face, in weightless expression. How little my knowledge, how muddled my vision? Perhaps time took no pleasure in grinding those ideas into dust, but nothing grew from it. No wisdom or perspective has endured, no attempt to alleviate the pain of life has ever proven stronger than suffering, a water-mark, tattooed on my very bones.

The melodrama falls short when I see my own eyes.

It is so exhausting to ignore regret. The eyes staring back at me have seen everything about me, they know everything I have done and why. Oh sure, I didn’t regret anything at the time. Hindsight showed me clearly, showed me all the trash I produced, all the unnecessary pain I caused others. Sometimes I know for sure, other times my imagination tells me about it. It shows me all the tiny atrocities I have participated in, whether intentional or not, they are part of me.

What participation am I guilty of? What system have I propped up, what have I added to the world? How much oppression has my lifetime of good intentions produced? What about trash from products I desired, and for what? Momentary glamour, tiny slices of time where I was able to blind myself with feeling “okay”. How long did that last? Not one blissful moment stopped the water from rising, nor the dread of being alive in morning. Not once has the glamour a memory survived the wash of time.

At the time I felt authentic, true to myself, but only true in the fact I had already killed all other perspectives. All that remains is this singular viewpoint and it burns. The fire slowly eats me, I could end it all, but I won’t. The desire for life pulls me on. It drags me through hate-distorted images, down a hall of mirrors, whose reflections are only demons wrapped in memories and hopes, smiling back and mouthing the words “I’m okay”.

Its not okay, it never has been, not until the tide reaches my eyes and puts out this fire.

The Stomach:

My sister’s house got robbed on Saturday morning.

Last night we drank too much. The breakfast place near us had the greasy medication for our self-imposed affliction. The burglary happened while we were eating, we came back to a bigger mess than when we left. Nothing was missing at first, just riffled through and scattered on the tiny living room floor. There was a pile of electronics and our plastic jewelry by the window, as if someone had been interrupted from finishing the robbery. Maybe they ran out of time.

The panic set in when I checked my room. My phone was gone, and my wallet was missing.  I needed both of those things, my hammer headache turned into a full construction crew bulldozing my plans. Not that I had any important plans, but the violation of my living space spun me out.

We filed an official report and searched the house for any clues. An officer was sent to my sister’s house and found no signs of forced entry. They asked the neighbors if they saw anything, left their contact information and said they would be in touch. We never heard from the officer again.

By now, the panic illustrated itself as a small metal lock. We bought 3 of them: one for the front door, one for the back door and one for my bedroom. I didn’t live there, but I stayed over with my sister enough to necessitate my inclusion in the precaution. I wasn’t going to stay there unless there was a lock, no way I was going to sleep in a house that was just robbed.

My headache-construction site was well on its way to rebuilding my calm, my previous sense of safety, but I could feel the answerless fear in the back of my throat. Why was my stuff stolen and nothing else? Who knew I was there, who was watching me? I felt watched, even though the locks were strong, and our alarms raised.

The next day I went and replaced most of the cards in my wallet, I dug up an old  wallet and took its tattered leather body out for another season. It was comforting to revive something familiar, something that was out of reach of the unknown invader. Replacing the phone was easy and painless.

It was a week before I stayed at my sister’s house again. She threw a party and the panic had been placated. At the time, I didn’t want to think about it, it was over. It wasn’t.

I was riding my bike to my sister’s house, and a passing neighbor guy waved me down.

“I found your phone! I recognized your hair color.”

I had recently colored my hair, this didn’t make sense. He slowly gave me my phone back, he must have seen the confusion in my eyes. “I found your identification too, but I don’t have it here, come to my house later.”

So many flags. I was angry, I felt done over on all fronts, I was speechless in the face of someone that most likely robbed me. He smiled, the kind of smile where the eyes remain undisturbed and the rest of the face turns into a wall. Nothing, he just watched me from the road as I continued to my sister’s house.

Saying I was angry is an understatement, it’s the kind of fury that steals your breath. I needed to calm down, my pack of cigarettes was low. My bra lighter was warm from riding my bike, a flick later and my breath returned as an exhale of nervous smoke.

I couldn’t think, I wanted to go shake the creep, shake him until his meat fell off his bones and my wallet fell out of his smiling mouth. My sister said I should call the police.

I got new identification, I wasn’t going anywhere near that guy. I called the police, but nothing changed. A week passed, the anger remained, it squirmed around into a sharp pain behind my eyes. I needed relief.

I was riding my bike to my sister’s house when I saw the creep talking to another girl, the same fish-hook smile, the same confused look in the girl’s eyes. I felt like I was watching myself. Should I get involved? Should I say something? I didn’t, but watching the same encounter gave me an idea.

This creep was playing a game, waiting for a bite on the line. I decided I was going to watch him.

I bought a pair of binoculars and camped out the first weekend behind some curtains in the upstairs window. I watched him, learned his habits. He smoked too, he watched the street, rarely left his house. As far as I could tell he didn’t have a job.

The next weekend he left, and after an hour I began thinking of sneaking into his house. He returned before I did anything, but the idea was there.

The next weekend I was ready when he left for some unknown destination. I didn’t tell my sister what I was going to do. After his car rolled out, so did I.

I took a shovel, I am not sure why, I felt like I had to arm myself against whatever was in the house.

As I pulled the door aside, I tried to look within the house, but the lights were out. I fumbled a bit for a light switch but found only a smooth wall. My shovel clattered a little more than I wanted, it brushed a piece of furniture, making an unanswered chime in the darkness. I listened for any footsteps or sounds in silence. I reached my hand out and felt the wall. Following the edge, I hoped to find a source of light. I kept an eye on the doorway, the light from the world didn’t seem to be able to penetrate the threshold of the doorway.

Panic grabbed my heartbeats and tossed them into a vise. I wanted to run, but I had prepared for this and if it wasn’t for the hot embers of anger I probably would have. I had my shovel and as I gripped it in my hands, I felt a little better. I held it out in front of me like a blind man crossing a street. The metal chime on the wood made a lot of noise, but nothing moved other than me, no other sound could be heard. I think I knocked over a table with glass cups or dishes on it, I could feel the uneven floor as I passed over the carnage. I hoped it was something important to the creep, something he really cared about. I briefly thought of whirl winding the shovel around and seeing what else I could break.

Then I heard a snap, like a tree branch. The front door closed and there was only darkness. I stood there motionless and waited, wielding my shovel like a baseball bat, waiting for the smallest sound, was there someone else in the house?

A marathon of heartbeats later I did hear something. It sounded like my stomach was growling. It wasn’t my stomach, and it was much louder. I could here it above me first, then underneath me. It didn’t sound like wood creaks or footfalls, it sounded like tight cables being twisted back and worth in slow motion. I moved a little, adjusting my feet to face behind me. Then I felt it; a glue on my shoes, or syrup of some kind. I strained to lift my feet up, and each time I set them back down again they felt harder to lift.

I slapped the shovel on the ground and the spade held fast in the muck that I could only hear. The vicious splort held my shovel tight. I let go of it and avoided getting anything on my hands. I alternated between my feet, slowly walking in a wide step. I had an idea what direction the front door was.

Time passed, and the rumbling continued. Maybe a water heater was breaking, old pipes? Maybe I knocked something over than contained this muck? Maybe the wind closed the door? Slow step after slow step I followed the wall back to the front door.

The door was locked, the handle didn’t turn. The knob was covered in the same slime as I had been walking in, my fingers felt like they had just been doused in maple syrup or dried soda. I smelled my hand, it smelled a little like beets, something pungent and loamy.

Panic return in a flood. I reflexively beat on the door and screamed but my voice was muted. Something was soaking the noise. The door sounded more solid than before, as if I was beating on a tree, it too now seemed covered in the tree-sap substance. My arms were covered now and moving was getting more difficult.

I don’t know how long I stood there before I sat down. I gave up, I couldn’t move, and screaming did nothing. Then, as if the darkness was like a light switch it turned off. A regular darkness with its familiar vague shadows and breaks poured in and I could see the room I was in.

All around the edge of the room were forms resembling human bodies. These bodies displayed the same face as the creep, the same fish-hook smile, the same unarticulated eyes and blank stare. In the middle of the room there was a broken body, as if the body was made out of glass. Pieces of its face and an arm were shattered, the larger pieces stuck out above the layer of dark slime.

I looked down at myself and found the slime had covered me completely, the shine was visible. I felt my face and it too was covered. I could still hear the stomach noises. I was paralyzed, unable to do anything. The last thing I remember is squinting my eyes as the syrup started up over my chin and nose.

I awoke to no slime, no panic, no anger. I was curled up on the smooth wooden floor. I felt a strange sense of power, of confidence and I felt myself smile in relief. I heard footsteps on the other side of the door and the handle turned, I wasn’t afraid.

The creep opened the door and was already smiling. I stood up, looked down at my ill-fitting clothes and smiled back the same fish-hook smile.

A Point of Light:

Aniki Stonebones was finishing up the last of her duties when an unusual event overtook her. She was cleaning the altar of dust. Sitting on the altar were the dictated passages of the blind prophet Jorgan, who had heard the murmur of the Dwarven God Moradin. Aniki tried most of her life to hear the murmur of Mordin too, but the mysteries remained behind darkness, and the subtle wisdom of the passages evaded her. As a neophyte she pursued a life of contemplation and service.

In the chamber of worship, she fulfilled her trivial duties. A brilliant headache overtook her, light rolled into her eyes and she fell to her knees. The vision crept up her fingers and arms in a feeling of ice. She felt the cold breath of the divine on her neck and with a whisper, the light exploded in her head, and collapsed to the floor.

An hour later, she was discovered; her body covered in sweat, her face streaked in tears. When revived, Aniki’s eyes glowed in a light rarely seen in the halls of dwarves.

The divine light of the goddess Therin was revealed to her, a small glimpse was enough to ignite Aniki, a full glimpse would have burnt her to ashes. The vision unfolded as a long tunnel, who sides were shadows and darkness. They seemed to move in an almost unperceivable way, as if the tunnel were a giant fist with just enough room for a creature to crawl through. Aniki crawled, and each motion forward seemed to burn away doubt and fear. At the end of the closing fist was a light, a brilliant array of lattice, crystalline and immaculate, rotating in a carrousel of glass covered eyes. Sparks danced on the faces of the glass, each glinting from one to the next.

Aniki emerged from the hands of squirming rock and found herself surrounded by the glass faces and sparks of exquisite geometry, their eyes watching, looking down at her small dwarf body. Aniki had prepared her whole life for this moment, she prostrated before the vista of cosmic radiance, kneeling as she had before falling unconscious. She found herself weeping without knowing why, helpless against the greater forces. Then the voice of Therin whispered again, careful not to raise her voice.

“ …Find me in the waters of oceans… find me in the sunrise.. find me in the eyes of strangers...”

The words echoed from the glass faces and repeated like the fading ripples of a pond until she woke again in the land of the living. Her heart was burnt with the words of Therin, branded by the metal of angelic purpose. She knew what had to be done, she would leave the city of her birth, she would leave to travel to the upperland, the land of men and elves. Therin had called her, and while history firmly cast dwarves in the hands of the great Mordin, she was singularly chosen.

Some believed her, many did not. Her family cried when she left, she had no child, for she had lived her life in seeking the divine. She carried tokens of her homeland as not to forget her roots. Dwarves have strong roots, it is rare for them to travel, and rarer still to quest in the upper world of strange currents. It is assumed that the tides of men and elves are quick and deadly, easy for small dwarves to drown in the shifting passions of fickle power. Aniki feared no danger, she had seen the glass faces and heard the whispers of Therin.

She traveled for 3 days to the upperland, bringing only meager provisions. She found a caravan of travelers shortly after, others bound together for the sake of safety. She met humans and elves, half-elves and gnomes. She found them to not be so different than herself, not so unusual as she had been told. They sought the truth of their lives, they sought meaning and hope, and to find their own place in the great design of those glass structures of their own visions.

She traveled with the caravan and befriended a few with whom she shared meals and stories. Sylvane of Jasper was a barbarian from the north, quested by his father to learn the customs of other tribes of man and elves, so he may better rule as chieftain when his time comes. He was a tall man with broad and eager shoulders, who the trials of death and hardship had not yet laid their weight.

Next, she met Stephania, who did not share her family history. She was fleeing a place of persecution, violence and intolerance for a craft that called her. She was a wizard of pale robes and carried a book of secrets. She could conjure the heat of the fire and the cold of the winter with a series of motions and words beyond Aniki’s understanding. Of all the people in the caravan Stephania was a kindred spirit, another who felt a clandestine calling that could not be easily explained. They often ate meals together in comfortable silence, tolerating each other with warm smiles.

Over the weeks of travel, Aniki found it easy to be useful. Her vision of Therin allowed her to mend injuries, purify water, and calm the hearts of restless wanderers with the warmth of the light. She learned  the caravan was headed to a place where clerics and priests of Therin gathered in worship, others called to service of the light. While she had no formal training, those in the caravan were grateful that a seeker of light traveled with them.

On the last week the caravan trip, the long line of wagons had swelled to 60 as they approached the great city called Romale. The descriptions of the city did not do it justice, it had been glamourized over the weeks as a shining jewel of tolerant civilization. Yet when the hill crested, and the white-stone parapets pierced the sky, the eyes of Aniki filled with tears, for it was closest thing to her vision she had seen with her waking eyes. The masonry rivaled the mastery of her kin and the spired grandeur bloomed like a sunrise of golden flame. Aniki was not surprised that such a place would be the home of followers of the light, for such a place was surely a footstep to that glassy vision of tear-soaked divinity.

Entrance into the city required a small series of questions, a little documentation. A young constable named Wilhem, who perhaps was barely 16 was assigned to escort them around the city. The city they discovered was on the verge of war and the downcast eyes of mothers offered no welcome.

The 3 friends agreed to stay together until they could find their footing. Sylvane did not know the customs of men, Aniki was equally innocent and Stephania sought the protection of friends in case the weather of prejudice turned violent. Wilhem took them to an inn called the Ramshackle, it offered a beer called Therin’s Light, born from the inspiration of a gnome named Silberstolen who had died many years ago. They sold sweet pies and warm beds. It had been weeks with only the bare comfort of the road.

Aniki discovered that the young constable Wilhem was also a follower of Therin. Though the prayers he muttered, and phrases were foreign to Aniki. She tried to remember, for future reflection of their meaning.

They were almost finished with their meal, ready to retire when chaos spilled into the inn. From beneath of the building, under a rusted grate burst 4 creatures than vaguely resembled rats. Sylvane drew his axe, Stephania’s hands glowed in fire and Aniki drew to war hammer. Upon engaging the rats, they saw the bodies of the rodents were suspended in a slime, and it was the slime that was alive and crawling.

In the first quick moments the rat-things overwhelmed and consumed 2 patrons, their bodies added to the mass of the slime. The consumed patrons did not die but looked with die terrified eyes at the 3 friends in horror as the slime slowly digested their bodies. They looked on paralyzed, as Sylvane began swinging his axe.

There was no helping those poor victims, their bodies disappearing into husks that were only vaguely human shaped, the acid of the slimes eating their hair and skin effortlessly.

Sylvane and Wilhem slashed and hacked, Stephania burned and chanted and Aniki tried to get the remaining patrons away from the horror of the animated invaders.

200 heartbeats later the acidic slimes were motionless, dissolving into an inert jelly they sizzled softly on the floor. The inn keeper and Wilhem both looked at the rusted grate with unmovable eyes. The source of such creatures must surely be investigated. Aniki helped with burns from splashes, Sylvane suffering the worst due to lack of any armor or clothes other than his loin-cloth.

Down they went into the sewers underneath the Ramshackle Inn. Wilhem, though young still bore the authority of constable and offered rewards to the 3 newcomers of Romale for their help. The innkeeper offered luxury and coin, for if the slimes returned from whatever birthed them, their inn would surely be condemned, and their livelihood demolished.

Within the rotten sewers they found a series of tunnels leading into a large nexus of pipes, their age marked only by the rough rock and featureless grime. Small rats fled into darker shadows as they splashed in the slow-moving waters beneath the city until they found a large wooden door with dim light shining between the cracks.

Wilhem went first, barging into a room of cultists in the middle of what appeared to be a ritual of unknown intention. Whatever vile things they were doing, they now stopped to attack the young constable and the 3 friends.

Raising their rusted ritual swords, they charged in zealous fanaticism. Sylvane and Stephania proved to be potent killers. Wilhem was not a killer yet, but at end of the skirmish found his sword eagerly thrust into the heart of the cult leader without  hesitation.

The cultist’s chamber was full of terror. Scrolls and letters describing plans and schemes littered the desks. The texts detailed the use of a creature called a gelatinous cube, whose excretions were used for the making of the very pies they ate, the innkeeper a secret cult member and plans to unleash the cube after it had been grown to a monstrous size.

Upon further investigation they discovered a tunnel leading to the chamber where the gelatinous cube was kept, a steam room where the abomination could be contained and controlled. Panic was palpable, a suffocating miasma which filled the room. The cultists took their secrets to the grave, their reasons lost on the edges of swords and axes.

The secondary tunnel led around a twisted path, lined in vents and ductwork. Steam was released periodically, only to be echoed in tense nerves as the young constable and friends crawled though the lair of the cube.

It was Stephania that saw it first, a half-transparent cloud gliding over the walls. Instinctively she let out a bolt of burning flame, illuminating its form against the roughly hewn walls. Wilhem again did not hesitate, charging ignorantly at the quivering abomination. Sylvane followed, slowly building the momentum of his axe.

Wilhem was consumed before he could strike. Like the patrons of the Inn, he was paralyzed within the glob. Aniki rushed this time, knowing his fate would be like the melted faces of the inn patrons, those she could not save. She reached into the gelatinous fiend, pulling with her short arms, hearing the hiss as the slime began to melt her clothes and burn her skin.

Sylvane hacked and leapt, keeping away from the sloshing cube. Stephania threw bolts of flame, careful not to hit the constable or Aniki, she was chanting in mountains of words, her fire building in weight.

Aniki cried out to Therin for strength, invoking the vision of light within her.

Sylvane saw the flash, a brilliant blinding burst of white that filled the dark chamber for a fraction of a heartbeat. Aniki pulled Wilhem from the cube, throwing him as the light traveled with him. The glow fell over his skin and healed his burns instantly. He collapsed for a moment, disoriented and confused. He gathered himself quickly, this time encircling around the monster waiting for a moment to strike.

Aniki had been a conduit for Therin for a tiny moment, and even a whisper of the divine burns the mortal heart. She collapsed in fatigue, her small legs failing her. In the next couple of heartbeats, the gelatinous cube enveloped her dwarven form.

Wilhem and Sylvane helplessly hacked and slashed at the slime but could not get close enough to pull Aniki out from the cube’s mass. Each time the cube defiantly ejected a geyser of slime, requiring them to fling themselves to another part of the chamber, or be consumed.

It was Stephania that understood what must be done. She threw herself into the words of magic, the chant became a trance and the arcane swirled around her in anger and violence, gathering into a point of hate-distilled fire, until she could no longer contain the words. Then, in a sunburst not unlike the calling the Therin’s light, the flame was pointed at the cube.

The cube was reduced to ashes, and Aniki’s body with it.

Aniki who had watched the battle from inside the slime knew that her fate was nearing its end. She filled her heart with the prayers she had only learned in visions, she thought of those glass faces and Therin’s whispers.

When the fire came, so did the words of Therin. They wrapped around her small dwarven body, with her short legs and wide hands. The words flowed into her, and she became transparent, her body turning to glass and the spark of Therin moved through her as she passed into the realm of silver light.

She had found the end of her tunnel, the fist was now closed, and her life ended in a pure heartbeat. Aniki Stonebones died as a priestess of Therin without ever knowing a temple or church, disappearing into the bowels of the city, defending a friend.

Her name echoed for a moment on those glass faces of crystal lattice, whose clear eyes let the light of Therin shine through.

Entertainment Purposes Only: 

The body of Fred Rogers was exhumed by a grave robber named Funky Jackson, who after getting a grant of the Church of Loa located the grave. The bones were put into a small box and brought to a television studio. Whether or not they were the actual bones of Fred is debatable, the grant did not require a molecular analysis.

Funky Jackson wired up the bones to resemble its previous human form. A soft woolen sweater was hung on its thin shoulders. From behind a curtain the grave robber pulled strings and shuffled a few gears around to give the skeleton the appearance of walking, sitting and crossing its legs in thoughtful understanding. The bone puppet mouth opened and closed with a little string as Funky Jackson bent his voice into a snarling mockery of language.

The grave robber was a deft puppet master, having dug up several bodies in his career. He loved nothing more than pretending that the bones were alive, helpless to behave how he commanded. They talked and said exactly what he wished. Not that he wished anything grotesque, all things were considered with a point-blank expression, neither sensationalized or glamourized.

The first episode, which aired in the late hours of Plutonium Television, was about the death of pets. The show specially addressed the process of what happens to your pet’s body after they die. Dead Roger’s pet cat had recently died, a little tabby who lived a full life of comfort and ease. The beloved companion was named Mrs. Fizzleface, and it was in her 19^th year that her kidneys failed. Dead Rogers had saved the body of Mrs. Fizzleface to show young viewers what it looked like.

Funky Jackson tried to imitate the pacing and style of the previous television show: Mister Roger’s Neighborhood. He used silence in very similar ways, for example: the box containing Mrs. Fizzleface had a pound of worms added to it, then for 2 moments of silence the mass of creatures crawled and squirmed all over the bones of Dead’s Rogers pet cat. With his boney fingers he wiped an imaginary tear from his eye-socket and then looked at the camera with his eyeless gaze and described his favorite memory of Mrs. Fizzleface.

Each week Funky Jackson produced a new puppet show with Fred Roger’s skeleton. Each week a new object or idea was watched in silence for a moment. Sometimes they watched the sunset, showing how the day itself decomposed, sometimes they looked at wet leaves or banana peels for 2 minutes. At the end of the silence, Dead Rogers would ask the viewers if they could see a change. When there were worms, the change was easy to see, other times it was not.

Funky Jackson loved showing off what he learned as a grave robber. He never glamourized the dead, nor treated them with disrespect.  At the end of each show the skeleton puppet laid itself down in a coffin, and next to it was another empty coffin. The skeleton puppet invited the viewer to join him, perhaps someday, to be his neighbor.

In the age of Plutonium Television, the galaxy contained hundreds of trillions of people. When the show Dead Roger’s Neighborhood premiered, nearly nobody watched it. In fact, after the first season the viewership was so small that Funky Jackson thought about cancelling the whole thing and going back to simple grave robbing. However, a minuscule portion of the population enjoyed it, merely 30 million viewers.

It is worth noting that Funky Jackson had a first name, but upon meeting him, there was a profound distraction of odor which caused a type of amnesia. He would tell people his name, only to have the words fall from their lips and brains as soon the smell of his presence occupied their attention. The smells were caused by the exotic microbial creatures that inhabited Funky Jackson’s body. These microbial creatures had full control over Mr. Jackson’s body, they controlled his brain much in the same way he controlled the exhumed skeleton puppet of Fred Rogers. They caused him to fill out applications for a public television show, to promote their own agenda of preparing human beings (and others) for the eventual end of their lives. He was not willing at first, but the microbial influence had worn him down over the years of shoveling and grave robbing.

The shows escalated as the series continued. There was an all-time spike in viewership during the second season when Dead Rogers showed the process of how bovines decompose. After several episodes of singular decomposition and exhibition he moved on to multiple creatures rotting at the same time. He visited the hamburger factories of Valnev-4, the largest slaughterhouse of the sector. There in the final stages of the process of hamburgers the left-over parts of millions of cows were piled up to be turned into some other consumable product. The hills of flesh presented a rainbow of sepia-brown transition. The skeleton puppet would point at the top of the meat mountain and ask the viewers after the moment of silence: “Do you see a change?”

Dead Roger’s Neighborhood was not limited to biological life. Near the end of the second season the show began to explore the decay of cities through ruins, dilapidation, and demolition. The skeleton puppet toured the catacomb ruins of New Seattle, which, after a Gamma burst from galaxy IC 1101 reduced it to an abandoned wasteland.

Demolition provided excellent examples of non-biological decay. Dead Roger’s skeleton would point at crumbling cement and splintering wood and after a moment of silence ask the viewers again: “Did you see it change, did you see those molecules degrade?”. The harder it was to see the changes, the more animated the puppet skeleton became; spasmodically expressing his enthusiasm with unarticulated motions from his boney hands.

There was a 3-year break between the second and third seasons. Rumors within his tiny fandom circulated that Funky Jackson met some of the members of New Life, an organization that accepted all life for who they were regardless of species or size. New Life’s motto was “All Life is New Life”. He never espoused any propaganda of New Life, however access to the dead and dying increased. Funky Jackson was given tier-2 journalistic privileges in 4 solar systems.

This privilege allowed him to film on the battlefields of 2 wars, 3 revolutions and a plague on Valnev-3. He filmed bodies of human beings’ weeks after battle, showing their various stages of transition into skeletons. The wars were riskier, he would wait until after the action, when a pointless piece of land was covered in blood and the fighting had moved on to some other senseless objective before turning his camera on and puppeteering the skeleton of Fred Rogers.

Once, when Dead Rogers was strolling along the carnage of a skirmish, he discovered a living solider begging to die. Dead Rogers interviewed the screaming warrior, asking him if he had noticed a change yet. The solider eventually died and was given a moment of silence. Of course, following the soldier’s demise Dead Rogers turned to the camera and asked again “Do you see any difference? See how happy the soldier is now? No more screaming!”

Season 3 also covered the collapse of 2 governments, and a corporate dissolution. There was little biological death, much like the ruins and demolition. The show contained vistas of empty meeting halls, abandoned capitol buildings and looted warehouses. Cars were torched, buildings lit ablaze, some murders peppered the transition. Dead Roger’s boney finger pointed at an unused flag as it fluttered over a building that belonged to a nation, which no longer existed after the revolution. After a moment of silence, the squeaky and familiar voice of Funky Jackson presented as the disembodied words of Dead Rogers said: “Can you see the change?”

The last episode was a poetic tour of astrological bodies. Light belonging to stars which had burnt out billions of years before, shined in the galactic sky. Their decaying luminosity decorating the darkness of space. Dead Rogers pointed at some distant group of sparkles and with a half-hearted chuckle said: “That looks like Mrs. Fizzleface! She doesn’t look any different.”

When Funky Jackson died, his body was consumed by the microbial creatures who inhabited him. The skeleton of Fred Rogers sat nearby with his woolen sweater and crossed legs, he said nothing nor pointed at anything, he watched his master’s motionless body in an elongated moment of silence.

The Lovers:

Eyebite lived in the shadows of security cameras, waiting until the thick blanket of darkness before venturing into the land of the living. Night brought with it the freedom movement, requiring the least energy to watch prey. Even the moon was a liability and her habits rotated around its cycle in a lethal orbit.

She rarely called herself anything, and the name Eyebite had become more a title. When thinking of herself, she liked the term alligator woman. The creatures of Nile and swamps were the closest of her kin, much like the silver-backs are to human beings. Alligator women have hidden in ancient river reeds and deltas, crawling from caves to fissures until the drums of frantic heartbeats leave them no choice.

Alligator women share memories with the next generation, passing a lifetime of lessons and experiences through a metamorphic transformation. Then emerging with the threaded intelligence of eons, needled through their minds in a weave of bright lights.

Tonight, was a full moon, and the shadows offered little cover. The buildings stood as neutral sentinels, nether revealing or betraying in their allegiances. They were propped up as indifferent totems. Like all predators, there was an endless line of failures dotted by tiny successes of survival. Eyebite crept in the late hours watching for the stumbling and weak, waiting for the missteps of a single human.

Tonight, Eyebite watched two lovers, fresh in the glamour of each other. They giggled and stumbled from a bar, happy and cheerful. They held each other up, as they stumbled down the alley.

Like a spider who lives in the rotten trunk of a tree, Eyebite waited. There was too much light, too many cameras and there was two of them. Two sets of eyes are much more difficult, and humans instinctually look for blind spots in each other. Also, like a spider she ate very infrequently, conserving her energy for the new moon.

Days passed, and their evenings grew a little darker. The couple walked from the same bar again, unaware they were being watched. The glamour was hot now, like a molten river of fascination. The lovers were wrapped in each other, their own spinnerets gyrating with their bodies. Eyebite new none of the mysteries of human bonding but knew that predators rarely tolerate equals, one would cloak the other in lust or leverage. One would win.

A week more passed, and there seemed to be no other easy prey that would be on the streets during the new moon. The couple continued their ritual of meeting and drinking, then stumbled to one of their beds. Eyebite recalled her memories, a vast thread of experiences given by the Fang that made her. In these memories she saw the changes of humanity over the eons. Since the rise of the machine, the engine, human beings have thought of themselves as masters of the world, beyond predation. Seeing no challengers, seeing no higher hunters they became lazy, easy and slothful prey.

It was the camera that hurt the most. The alligator women evolved in response, but too slowly, learning a limited ability to black out cameras, to throw out an inky darkness. The cost creates a dangerous hunger, requiring more prey to consume and increasing the chances of being caught or killed.

Another week passed, and the nights were illuminated from the street lamps and spares headlights. The moon was waning to a sliver, a fiendish eye of sleep, a crescent of the night time hunt, heralding the older predators.

On the night of the new moon the couple exited the bar around 1:30pm. Eyebite was ready, and the new moon reflected nothing.

They were drunk, chatty and oblivious to the sky above. They shuffled down the alley holding on to each other in glib elation. Some senseless conversation about world affairs floated up the walls of indifferent buildings. Flat faces of stone and steel didn’t care if human beings lived or died, if they were deep in strife, or glossed in the sweet lacquer of love.

Eyebite hid by a dumpster, her eyes also reflecting nothing, her body a tense coil and her fingers curved in a sharp anticipation.

The couple tripped twice walking down the alley, laughing with clumsy arms, and lost in the eyes of the other.

Like Cupid’s arrow shot from a dead man’s bow, Eyebite’s instincts acted smoothly and silently. She was 2 arm-lengths away before one of the lovers felt the presence of a predator. The laughing stopped, and they starred wide-eyed into the darkness, unable to see anything from the new moon.

Eyebite waited for the panic to set it. She grazed their legs and brushed their faces with gentle fingernails. She teased their fears until they both turned their heels and started to run. Then Eyebite dropped a greater darkness over them, from deep within she evoked the ancient techniques of her ancestors and covered the alley in an opaque curtain.

She opened her mouth to the size of human body, stretching her joints and jaws as the lovers cried out in confusion at sudden disappearance of the alley. They could hear Eyebite’s skin and bones expanding, and they did what human beings do when faced with such situations: “Hello, is anyone there?”

Hoping to negotiate with some unseen force, they strained to hear an answer.

Eyebite grabbed a lover with a series of jerky contortions, echoed by cries of emergency. Stuffing the body of the human being into her mouth. She backed down the alley as the cries turned to a smothered squeak. The other human being screaming and flailing in the darkness, helpless.

The night ebbed, and Eyebite fled, leaving the survivor alone. There was no explanation, no evidence other than a teasing darkness and a panic of the unknown.

Plagued by nightmares and mystery over the next couple of weeks the survivor filed a missing person report to a room of officers with doubtful expressions.

The reckless hunger paid off the following month: The survivor walked the alley every night looking for any clues or signs, until the new moon fell again. Eyebite ate well that year, grateful for the blind spots of human beings.

The Ocean of Tears:

Down by the river, the fools gathered for their fellowship. We all number among them, there is no creature that does not walk to the river mouth. The strong and the weak, the angry and the fierce, each foot-step draws us closer. Those who cannot travel by themselves are carried by the darkness of their hearts. The same darkness that lives under the river and within all the trees surrounding the fellowship.

Like salmon returning to their spawning beds, the instincts of all the world’s people drive them to the river mouth. The music of the sky sings its lullaby, and the trees usher the way with crooked fingers. The creatures of the earth crawl, each in their own way, often taking the entirety of their lives. Each step a year of lessons, a year of struggle.

Down by the river the gospel floats from the breeze as the first fool opens their mouth to sing the lines of the chorus. They sing of the mystery of the water, and the veil of the darkness underneath. The glamour of ignorance shines so brightly, so sharply into their eyes, that the reflection of the water dazzles them into a stupor of magnificent confusion.

These fools are not unlike everyone else in the world; wild things with scars and cuts from the forest behind them. They creep from swamps and shadows, climb down from the trees and from inside buildings and nations. From the dark corners of creation, the fools gather, their faces painted as tribes of the world, their hearts matching the beat of the tide. The rhythm has always been a part of them, it was there when they sprouted out of the wet ground or from the closets of decaying houses. Some humans are merely born, then thrown back into the river to be washed out with the tide, the river carrying them back to the ocean.

Those gathered at the river mouth have carried themselves with determined focus, unknowingly following the call of the mystery. Some have known something inside compels them, turning their feet inward and their eyes downward. The glamour shines its light into their eyes, summoning them from those distant forests and towering cities, gathering them in a loose clutch of answerless seekers.

That first singing fool is joined by the rest, and the choir matches the smooth tones of the river flowing next to them. The echo of such things is how they grasp around at the objects of their world, and the sparkling light of the water is no different.

After the choir has exalted the light, they all remove their clothes and bath in the delta of the river on the shoreline of a wide ocean. Hoping to become the light on the waves, they submerge themselves, wishing to understand what lies underneath the mystery of their fellowship. Some splash in playful defiance, but they too eventually submerge themselves with eager hearts.

The sky joins them with heavy drops of rain. Falling like tears from each one of them, their lives laid bare before the river waters. The rain cried out a mournful song, like them, it too has come from the river and is returning to the ocean, it too had felt the years of suffering and held them in its dark clouds. All the poor hearts emptied themselves, adding their tears to the slow raindrops. Whatever had scratched itself on the inside of those human fools, is now cleaned by the water, baptized in the river and the rain.

Naked and shivering, the river calls on the seekers one more time. A sun break pierces the congregation with a streak of brilliant gold. Shining down on a small spot out in the ocean, the light rays offering a luminous direction. “It must mean something!” they exclaim, “It is a sign!” they cry out.

The fools praise the light, and hope blossoms in their heads, and because the lessons and scratches within are erased, they remembered nothing. They are washed clean and, in their ignorance, start to swim out to the beam of illuminating light.

The crying sky watches the stream of fools roll out into the ocean, swimming however they can. They paddle and strain, some help one another, and others struggle to breath among the waves.

When the first fool reaches the shaft of light the glamour begins to fade. The clouds, they cover the light with their purple and black bodies. Without the sunlight, the fools look in every direction, but there is no direction or purpose to be found. They shout to each other, and the sky answers back with more tears.

One by one they sink into the ocean, joining the blackness which they came. One by one the waves lap over their wild faces and shivering bodies. Those that struggle soon release their strain and float down into the arms of the ocean. Those who can swim have no reason to turn back, surely the light can be seen again and they will be ready. They paddle in place until their strength failed them.

There is nowhere to go, there is no more glamour to be seen, no streaks of light or fellowship songs, only the black currents below them. The darkness that lives inside each one of those creatures has been returned, they have rejoined the depths of the cold ocean, the scratches of life washed from the fools. The shoreline creeps up as the tide whispers a white noise of relentless waves.   

Off Road:

What is a 4x4? A post of wood, a type of vehicle, or even an elementary school question. Like the term Jaguar could mean a car or a cat, multiple meanings pervade language like a wonderful infection. They squirm through history with a flexible and serpentine sleekness in the minds of human beings.

Children, bright teenagers and some adults have no problem with multiple meanings, its second nature. Learning tone of language is often the first step in developing discretion for maneuvering through society. You can’t really say what you mean, you can’t really say what you want. The world revolves around silence. Perhaps in the future everyone will broadcast everything they think and feel and be utterly exploited.

Of course, this is a generalization, limited guesswork of complex currents. Good luck with the rising tide, good luck swimming, there is no school for silence.

I used to think of 4x4 truck as a symbolic penis for those who feel helpless. The large truck being a glamorous effigy for freedom, being able to move refrigerators or furniture. Or being able to drop the thin skin of civilization and shed it like a reptile and slither back into the reeds of the river. Who am I do deny those who wield symbols against the senseless?

It was many years ago when I changed my mind on what a 4x4 means.

We were visiting the mountains for a funeral themed family reunion. I didn’t know the deceased, it was in a church, some people ate the body of Christ, I didn’t.

In the evening we hung out with new relations. A couple of marriages brought and influx of conversations, introductions and some hilarious stories. This one Swedish dude with a single testicle was wicked sharp. He and his buddy were enthusiastic about off-road machines, and the stories about near misses and glory quickly became the highlight of the visit.

That evening I listened to some of the most captivating examples of luck saving the foolish. The more reckless the situation, the more chance took mercy on their blind courage. This resulted in an image of them as immortal cartoon characters, who were lightly singed after an inevitable explosion.

The next morning, they offered to take us to the mountain in their off-road machines. We had a lot of cheap beer for breakfast. There was some trouble getting one of the 4x4s working, requiring some last-minute cannibalism from a friend’s truck. I couldn’t tell you what they did.

We then traveled to a spot in the forest that led to a series of makeshift trails. I could see the road passing by between gaps in the metal sides. There was a roll cage skeleton, but the rest of the vehicle was half-disintegrated.

While we traveled, the conversation turned to practical matters, like what would happen if they got stuck or if a particular fallen tree was a new or old obstacle. The Swedish dude would point at something and roll out another story about a seemingly innocuous area. I took his word for it, having no knowledge or experience of what off-roading should be.

We got stuck a couple times, but not for long. He would slam it into reverse, and the smoke from the custom exhaust would blow right in our faces when we looked over our shoulders. Then without opening our mouths, the quick shift into 1^st would jerk the cab just enough to shake flakes of rust from the roof. His story telling would pause while rocking out of pits of mud. Once back on the trail, and the rust flakes brushed off our faces, the stories continued.

Perhaps the cheap beer caught up to us, or the poisonous fumes of the rotten machine soaked into our heads, we started to get a bit giggly. The kind of giggles that comes from childhood sugar highs. For me it was also a nervous reaction, I had seen the edge of the cliff face a few times from the cracks in the bottom of the 4x4.

The side of the mountain provided a wide view of a beautiful green backyard of mother nature, full of lush adventure. My thoughts never strayed far from my imminent death, due to the previous night’s stories and syrupy funeral. Perhaps the beauty of the vista was enhanced by the very real possibility of tumbling over the side and disappearing into the trees.

We watched in silence for a moment, then headed back.

I wasn’t driving, I wasn’t in control at all. My fate was in the hands of a giggling Swedish man. I think I wanted to be in the stories he described, I wanted to see the near misses for myself.

It was on the way back when I got my chance. We hit a belligerent patch of mud, and after 10-12 times rocking we knew we were stuck. He used his phone and contacted the other 4x4 roaming around somewhere else on the mountain, it had a winch. The second 4x4 showed up behind us within a couple of minutes. The winch made a high frequency whine and spewed white smoke.  

Right when the mud was about to relent, the winch broke. The 4x4 rolled back down into the vicious slop (we were in the cab at the time.) It didn’t stop, it dipped into the hole and continued, the inertia carrying it down the mountain trail.

Panic rose up as the Swedish man tried to pop it into an appropriate gear. The giggle turned into a laugh and I felt myself caught in the contagion, I had already let go of falling to my death earlier. The terror cracked as we slammed into a tree, crushing the suspension. The vehicle buckled and came to a rest. We were still laughing; fully aware we could have continued down the mountain trail in a twisted ball of rust and smoke. It was an immense relief to laugh at death.

Our friends looked terrified when we crawled out from the wreck. We assured them we were unhurt, still grinning. We returned to civilization on the back of the other 4x4. I don’t know how they got the twisted wreck from the forest.

When people mention 4x4s, this experience on the mountain-side oblivion is the second thing that fills my head. The first being the number 16, which is an altogether a different story, one worth keeping silent.

An Unforgettable Adventure:

We are travelers of the dreamtime. We have walked between the trees and the mountains and down the valleys with wind-worn feet. From the sleepy syrup of astral flight, we descend from cloud to clay, down to where the sky meets the ocean. On its edge, the inarticulate shore crawls with waves.

We have come here to find the ruins of the unknown city. Legend and myth bear no mention, no pages of history. Yet calling from the abysmal depths of nightmares a vision invades our dreamtime with its formless claustrophobia. After months of avoiding the dreamtime fear, we now pursue it, to unveil its motives, its desires. In our travels the call has grown in focus, dilating and twisting into a bright vision. Day by day we stretch over the night sky with our winged feet searching for the place that calls us.

We can see it now, its location marked on our minds, seared with a light that offers no release.

The dreams started with soft whispers, rough shapes that outlined pillars and peaks of construction we had never seen. Then as the days passed and the whispers became cacodaemoniacal, building in detail and sound until only its vivid noise burned in our brains. Both of us, heavy with vision began screaming. This scream had given us flight, soaring through the dreamtime in the pursuit of an unnamed terror.

We found the ruins with the consumption of fever potions, its distillated delirium providing the locomotion to the furthest reaches of the dreamtime, its edges dangerously close the wastes of Limbo.

The ruin was made of low stones, and seemed at first artificial, as if was not forged by human beings but by long-armed giants with brains of twisted geometry. Insane measurements that turned right angles into facets of maddening perspective.

The ruin articulated itself and we uncovered a vaguely defined base of what was once a square shaped structure. Flashes of its past glory exploded in our heads, reducing us to mere witnesses, losing ourselves in the overwhelming brilliance. We rallied ourselves with another quaff of the fever potion and slipped back into manageable control.

We searched the area looking for symbols, clues, anything not fallen into the Kingdom of Dust. Nothing remained other than the leering walls, their stonework diminished to a sprawl of crumbling fingers. We searched in a spiral pattern, meeting at the center, where we found a smaller outline of clustered walls.

Now in the center of the ruins, whose cold stones bore no welcome, and offered no warnings or greetings. We fell into discussion for an hour wondering the relevance of this abysmal relic, a tossed away bone of a once glorious creature of civilization. It was a casual perturbation of the crumbling stones that revealed a large set of doors, located like a trap door beneath us. We then searched for a way to open the gray metallic mouth. The lips appeared to be moveable, provoking our curiosity.

We crawled and groped haphazardly in those crumbling walls. There was a flash of ancient times, when the metal mouth spoke out creatures, long-armed giants, glazed in an amphibian moisture, slow and clumsy. Within the vision we saw a robed figure, a piece of ceremonial cloth covered its body and they wielded a solid lead scepter. He put the scepter in the nose of the metal face, twisted it and the mouth closed.

Shortly after the serrated vision ebbed we found the scepter: A lead-bar, heavy and vaguely arm shaped, perhaps insectoid, smooth and segmented resembling a curved claw. We leveraged the scepter in the manner of our blinding vision and with an unsettling noise, which had been waiting for untold eons, the metal face released the lock.  

Once unlocked, we passed the lips easily, bringing light to the the lightless cavern beneath the antique ruin. We gazed around in silence. Beneath the door we discovered a network of primitive halls. Artwork of some unknown civilization flowed out unto every surface. The style was an edgeless scribble with grotesquely illustrated proportions. We shuddered at the idea of those long-armed giants, crawling through the halls of this underground terminate mound of nightmarish construction. How long had this terror lay sleeping in the buried sands?

The halls wandered, like the veins of a transparent and crooked finger. Blue and purple paint displayed beautiful scenes of human abundance. Great vistas of feasts and harvests, fruits of endless variety spilled from cornucopias of exquisite decoration. We followed the creeping halls to a stairway leading down.

The second floor of winding halls was similar in its meandering design, but the vistas of beauty were replaced with those of domination. Here we found depictions of confinement, bars and chains accompanied the figures as they now appeared hunched and crooked. We followed the halls until we found yet another stair case leading down. This floor was smaller than the one above, presenting us with the imagination of an inverted pyramid, descending deeper to a single peak.

For hours we walked, compelled by this unrelenting dream-light, each floor depicting more figures in bizarre rituals, rendered in the vile artistic method that mocked form and shape. The faces became more distorted and their backs more crooked and misshaped. Until the figures did not resemble any creature we had seen, nor were the depictions and symbols anything we understood at the time.

When practical understanding ceased, it was replaced by a new and undeniable fear. What lay at the bottom of this inverted spire of some elder civilization? What information was contained in those contorted figures, perhaps a warning? What hungry mouth lay at the bottom, luring us down with an irresistible influence we cannot name?

We found those answers at the bottom of the dreamtime abyss. We crawled until only the single floor remained. There, in the dark chamber of grotesque artwork lay two objects: A large metallic book, and another segmented clawed hand, like that of the locked door. The claw had the forefinger sharpened into a needlepoint, a polished glass tip.

The book was engraved with scratches, a font made by what looked like clawed etchings. The book was unmovable and upon readings its passages, we discovered why. Within its thin metallic pages bound in lead wire were the descriptions of billions of lives, each detail of every hour in methodical order. As we read the entries it was clear that the book itself contained more that it should be able too, we could move a thousand pages and never move from the median of its spine. Each page containing a dense and miniscule font, requiring immense focus to render any understanding.

This leaden book and its crooked claw instrument weighs more than any nightmare. They compel us, with an unbearable duty, it charges us with the duty of its continued existence. Obediently we return to the book every year and descend from cloud to clay and chisel upon its pages the lives of creatures in tiny scribbles of immaculate detail.