hi every body i am going to also use this blog to post short stories / drabbles of the cosmic horror, body horror, magical realism, prose, parody, and possibly erotic persuasion, since all those genres are often the same thing. nothing will be tagged or warned i donât want it to be like a ns/fw blog i will just block anyone sus and minors go away. some of this stuff will be episodic and posted in chunks of vignettes and if it becomes a series, navigate me by tag and then compiled when done. Ok bye
âRun into a cave and break your ankle so that people have to come find you and they see you lying at the bottom of this beautiful cave and maybe thereâs a waterfall and the light from the crystals makes you look really beautiful and they say âAre you okay?â and you say âI think soâ and they say âoh my God have you been here alone this whole time with a broken ankleâ and you say âitâs okayâ and they say âyouâre so braveâ and you are brave and you look so beautiful surrounded by cave crystals and everyone stands over you and says âoh wowâ and âyou poor beautiful thingâ and âIâm so sorry we let you run into the cave but Iâm so glad we found youâ and let them carry you home and promise to be your best friends forever and that everythingâs their fault and also they named the cave after you and youâre prettier than all of your enemies and your enemies all died of jealousy while you were in the cave.â
â Daniel M. Lavery, How To Respond To Criticism (via boringoldraphael)
Something that David Lynch gets that Lovecraft never seemed to understand is that if the gods that govern the space between spaces are truly vast, unknowable and infinite-- then somewhere within the confines of that dark infinity is the capacity for joyousness, kindness, and even love.
It was not out of the ordinary for children to possess both a pathological fear and an insatiable obsession with the four-legged Beasts of the past. The pre-Vanishing ecosystem was seldom spoken of, and only in hushed tones.
Sometimes, if an older relative grew drunk enough to feel absolved for any improper remarks, a certain sense of dark humor kept the topic tolerable, and children would ask questions about the Beasts. It was rare enough an occurrence, normally suited to post-festival gatherings. One drunkard, oft battle-scarred, slurring a diatribe about trading Beasthide as little cousins sit attentive, hugging grass-stained knees to their enraptured hearts.
âUncle, what of the Beasts that didnât vanish, those who were already meat or leather?â
âYes, yes! Did we bury them? Did we give them rites? What sort of rites befit a Beast?â
âChildren, children, your dear old uncle has had too much wine and fermented fish. I shall answer in the morning, I shall regale it to thee you plainly, as my grandfather regaled it to me.â
Of course, when the morningdove crowed, the familyâs children would find rolled-up cots and the sound of grownfolk arguing over missing silverware, no sobered-up old soldier in sight.
Reader,
Next time you find yourself in the Crescent, go to a tavern. A nice one, donât get yourself slashed. The kind full of young grownfolk, 20 winters or older. As them about âthe Vanishing Uncleâ. It has become somewhat of an archetype to the natives, much like the linen-silk trickster of the East, or the bruin-hugging Gaul. Do take care who you say this to, some donât admire the bravado.
We all knew him, or knew someone who knew him. Everyone had a story of irresponsibility and embellishment. When speaking of this sort of man, we would preface: âNow, these are the thoughts of a distant uncle, not IâŠâ In some villages, this is still so. In some villages, gossip on the matter is acceptable, but anything more is offensive.
For brevity: It wasnât discussed. A rule, an unspoken rule akin to covering your loins and boeing your when a woman or widuu enters the baths â if you were raised correctly, you never had to be told outright. Adults were never to discuss the specifics of the Vanishing around children.
Especially not Adel and Utor.
As a boy, Adel was fascinated by the Beasts of the past. From hulking grey brutes with coarse skin and horned faces to the cherubic mutants ancient men kept as soft-furred companions, every child had a favorite. Children often had encyclopedic knowledge that would soon wear off as they lose interest and enter middle childhood. At 6 and a half, Adel was no different. His favorite vanished beast was the Dog.
Adel's best friend, Utor, favored the common Horse. Utor was a sensitive child. He played nicely with boys and girls, yet preferred to play alone. Usually polite, he had an occasional defiance streak, and a strong sense of justice. Regarded, perhaps prematurely, as a precocious sign or intelligence or virtue, this judiciousness was encouraged by the village tutors. Utor was the only child who played with Adel. The two engaged in imagination-play, crawling around on all fours, imitating sounds that could have been. What it must have been like to be them, to see them, the four-legged Beasts of yore.
They spoke of many things, but the Vanished Beasts sparked many conversations. Arguments, too. Utorâs parents and Adelâs mother never had to intervene, not until one day in Springtime.
While weaving crowns of daisies in the field, just ever so slightly out of the watchful eye of his overworked mother, Adel stole Utor's ring of daisies and crowned his own head with a triumphant display of listless bluffing.
Utor was upset, but he centered himself. He refused âcaste-sink to the aggressorâ as his militant uncle would put it. The thought of this own mercy emboldened him. He reached out to swipe the crown off his thieving friend.
To Utorâs shock Adel slapped his hand away. Far harder than a friend had ever slapped him prior. The kind of slap reserved for the lowest of disciplining. Utor clutched his aching hand, dewdrops of tears welling up in his eyes. Silence became tensions as they watched the wheels in each otherâs expressions start to turn. Utor thought carefully, as carefully as he could think with a stinging hand.
"I see why you like the Dog. It was the most meanest four-leg of them all."
It was the first insult he could think of. A cogent retort, or so he thought. Adel was being cruel. Adel loved the Dog. Utor only liked the daisy chain, but Adel hurt him physically. In young Utorâs mind, this exchange of blows was Hammurabian. Surely, they would resume playing.
To his surprise, Adel retorted instantaneously.
âThe Horse carried meaner men than any Dog.â Though it was mumbled with unmet eyes, its tone was as if Adel had been waiting say this all year.
A new, foreign kind of humiliation thrummed in Utorâs chest. His fair-skinned face burned ruddy. It chemical-burned from rejection into rage. It burned so much, made so much pressure in his skull, he was screaming like screaming kettle he said, âwhen hungry, the Dog would eatâŠ. rawâŠ.â
Utorâs shaking voice snagged on taboo, yet still, he elaborated.
âThe raw pulp of their own. Of fellow Dogs.â
Adel was never an expressive child. (He had not even cried at birth, even as the midwife chanted a hearty mantra, unsheathed her stiletto to sever the umbilical cord round his neck.)
"Dogs ate their masters."
"That's not true."
"Dogs ate their masters even when they weren't hungry. Dogs bit-â
Utorâs vision eclipsed into sudden darkness as Adelâs left-hook struck him. A slap, why- every child has been slapped. That was life in the Crescent. This was not a slap, this was a balled-fist strike.
Utor stayed in a heap on the ground, even as the teal-green sky phased back into sight above him, quick tears quickening the kohl to run from his eyelids to his snot-dripping chin. Finally, he manages:
âYou hit me. You HIT me! Iâm telling your mother! Iâm telling hyr!â
No response. Just heavy breathing from Adel, looming above him with an uncharacteristic scowl. The whimpers continued.
âYouâre no worse, no worse at all, than a vanished Dog,â he cried.
Adelâs mother heard the exaggerated wail of Utor from nearly sixty strides away. Hy wished it to be a playful holler, waited a pinch. Alas, another scream. More anxious than agitated, hy gathered up the hem of hyr silks and headed for the field. What a horrid child, hy thought fondly, just like his father.
Year ago, when the midwife cut the noose around his neck, Adel drew his first breath as a sort of trade.
He began to cry. And cry, and cry. His mother bled, and bled, and bled until she passed, became his foremother. His father cried too. His father, he-now-hy, cried so hard, that the soul of the foremother passed into the gouge in hyr heart. That must have been why, the villagers thought, that Adelâs father became Adelâs widuu mother so willingly. This was what the villagers gossiped, anyway, and continue to do so.
I got to do the thumbnail and bumper art for one of my favorite youtubers, Flawed Peacock, for his video on the short story anthology The King in Yellow. It's been a dream project and I'm so proud of how it turned out. And the vid is 9 fucking hours long alksdjfsljd
every time I see this thumbnail I feel too harrowed to click the video. nothing good or honourable can be happening inside that hamburger with an expression like this. not at all
