Jeff Mach's Blog, page 29

With A Crash (from Absinthe Heroes, the Steampunk Rock Opera)

MAYOR (As NARRATOR): And we enter an age of deeply improved miracles–not the
old and tarnished miracles of the antediluvian times, messy with spider gods and oft-devoured
moons; not those long-gone miracles of flaming flora and pillars of sodium and highly
unfortunate prophecy–rather, miracles wrought by the hands of advanced primate specie!
Miracles of cold black iron and sweating copper pistons. We enter, one sunrise from now, a
better time. It is the day before the great Air-Race, sponsored by the Mayor of Thamestown,
glorious capital of Grand Britain!
What wonder, ceaseless wonder, is upon us this day! All is glorious, and no ill could ever
come to such fresh, clean-living people. Truly we are at the zenith of the Great Chain of Being!
CHASTITY, ADASTRA, DR. ANTIKYTHERA, MAYOR:
“With A Crash, And A Bang, And Additional Crash!”
With a crash! and a bang! and another crash!
The future is upon us
It comes like a train
On tracks of mithril bright!
With a whir! and a click! and a hum! and a tick!
The better days arrive
We are harbingers
Of brightling delight!
MAYOR:
My proudest day approaches; my eyes hold gentle tears
And I bless the wonders of the Modern Age
It is the eve of Fair-Day, and I feel millennial
Long shall tomorrow leap from History’s page
We are a simple people; we are good and honest souls
Home from a hard day, tea brewing in the kettle
A little national fervor; it’s excellent for the health
And, of course, an air race, via anti-gravity metal!

With a crash! and a bang! and another crash!…
ADASTRA:
I’ve roasted half to cooking in the mighty Serengeti
Seen a Sultan’s hareem through a golden telescope
I’ve held my breath beneath a ship to try to spot the Kraken
Sniffed snuff made from the strangest Oriental dope
Now I’m off to fly an airship for the renown of my nation
Whose flag will proudly wave about my head
I know my role in life, and I’ll take the pale man’s burden
The people do need circuses, as much as they need bread
With a crash! and a bang! and another crash!…
CHASTITY:
I have a simple duty, and I make my simple way
With oscillation, motion, and refraction
With thermo-electricity, and the motion of the moon
And forays into chemical reaction
I have a certain theory, and I’ve put it into plan
Inside a gallant captain’s vessel grand
I’d say he’s sure to win – but nothing’s really sure
Few things ever go quite as dreamed, or planned
With a crash! and a bang! and another crash!…

DR. ANTIKYTHERA:
I’m just a simple and a humble chocolatier
An essentially trivial profession
I shall come armed with sweetmeats galore!
And give them away free to the procession
Once I was a scientist; but my calling true
Is making all the little children cheer
And I’m not the least bit sinister, nor strange in any way
If you’re seeking evil menace, I’m sure you won’t find it here.
With a crash! and a bang! and another crash!…

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This story

….never did exist.

The post This story appeared first on Worlds of Villainy.

A Story Of Sir Jerah

Sir Jerah had served the Armies of Light for a long time before he realized that they were not simply disorganized, but frankly unaware that they were an army. They believed themselves to be besieged, remnant survivors defending a near-empty fortress against an infinitude of beings of utter darkness.

So very besieged, so deeply beset were they, that the vileness without invaded that was within, and many days, the only merriment was the crackling of the flames which burnt cheerfully around those who had been proven incontrovertibly of wrongdoing by the anonymous graffiti which angels scrawled on every surface when one uttered blasphemy. For a while, this blessed relief was marred by screaming; but a tongue removed is a voice unable to speak lies: everyone knows this.

And still, somehow, there was discontent.

One morning, Sir Jerah awakened to learn of his own actions:

demonology
betrayal
slaughter of the innocent
sheltering of the guilty
the repeated kicking of puppies, a particularly gross act because no-one had seen a puppy for years, and so presumably, in order to kick them, he’d needed to find them, breed them, and heartlessly, clobber the innocent beasts
blasphemy
super blasphemy
extra double secret triple-strength new improved blasphemy
wrongthink
anythink
everythink
slaying dragons under false pretenses
slaying false pretenses under the influence of dragons
smooching demons
smooching demons with tongue
plotting destruction of the Universe
and
graffiti.

Fortunately, he told them his many sentences would be suspended if he merely admitted his guilt.

He said that he wasn’t guilty.

He was told this was perfectly fine; they would treat him as guilty, but suspend his sentences, as long as he admitted his guilt.

He said that he couldn’t do that.

It was pointed out that he really had no choice in the matter.

He suggested that truth was a reasonable choice.

They all enjoyed a good laugh, except, sadly, for Sir Jerah.

He suggested that anonymous graffiti might not, in fact, be a total and absolute truth.

The next day, he found that not only was their more graffiti about him, but that entirely new buildings, of no purpose and structure, had been erected, apparently for the whole and entire purpose of the writing of new graffiti about him.

No-one died during his escape.

It took him many years to realize that this last detail was his only true sin, and he resolved that, if he did nothing else, he would change that before he, himself was killed.

Sir Jerah proved hard to kill. But the ideals of truth and beauty which cast him out would surely live on forever.

Because Sir Jerah was just a man; but Truth is a virus which is too perfectly-evolved to kill the host before it infects others.

And as long as the Truth is real, then infection is holy and pure.

Do you know the difference between the Zombie virus and the Truth virus?

Neither does Sir Jerah. More’s the pity for him.

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From one of my first musicals – “Ash”

The first two songs.

Characters:
Lilith
Coyote

…and as we begin, Lilith arrives at Coyote’s door.

“A Lovely Throat”
(Lilith)

I have come courting
I have come to do the thing
I have come courting
Though I don’t give a damn about a ring
I have come courting
Belly empty, heart is full
And I am unafraid
Because I’m irresistable

I’ve got a neck made for biting
My eyes are full of lightning
Got a mind deep with sin
And skin that you want to be in;
I’ve got a lovely throat

I demand to be kissed
And I think I know by whom
I know what I want
Now take me up to your room
This is no seduction
It’s a fait accomplit
I know your tastes
And it’s time you tasted me

I’ve got a neck made for biting…

I hope you do not mind
But I have come to be adored
I have come to play some games
I have come to be well-scored

My life has been too straight
I’ve come for you to bend it
I won’t ever be boring
I’ll leave when you spend me
And that will never happen,
my friend

I’ve got a neck…

Coyote meets her as she comes in.

“May I Take Your…”
(Coyote, and then Coyote & Lilith)

Why do we always say
“It’s been a long time”?
Between you and I, it’s always
A long time
So many mistakes separate you and I
For such a long time
Such a long time

And yet every time –
“Been a long time”
It seems we need
Such a long time
To forget something of the harm,
So we can try
One more time
One more time

I didn’t expect to see you
At my door
(That’s why I came in the window)
I didn’t expect to see you
Anymore
(Place still stinks of sex and gin, though)

You look beautiful
But I never forgot that
(You never change, it’s like I’ve never gone)
May I take your coat, your hat
And everything else you have on?

Why do we always say…

I love the way your eyes accuse
(I love the way your teeth dig in)
I love the way you want to be used
(I love the way you keep me pinned)
I love the way you demand
(I love the way you take me to task)
I love the way you clench your hands
(I love the way you never ask)

Why do we always say…

And we will close the door on the next few hours and give the twain
some privacy.
When they said “door” and “window”, it was poetic license – Coyote’s
now living in a cave. A fact which has not escaped Lilith….

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Touching A Dragon’s Brain

For in an inappropriately long amount of time, he truly believed that Magic was, in essence, primarily the merger, joining, and collision of two factors: Word, and Name. (Predictive models matter; you can believe, if you want, that the true Thaumaturgical source in the Universe; but you’d best be prepared to die in a sea of treacle.

It was not forgivable—not in the eyes that mattered, his own—that he’d viewed things so naively. When someone relies on some depth of knowledge, and you have not dug deeply enough, then you end up with a lot of dirt, a hole that’s too small, and a lack, not simply of rubies and precious metals, but even with a coherent idea of what the hole was actually supposed to contain in the conveyance of this concept; let’s just bury the whole thing and start over, okay?

Wishful thinking is, in the long run, fatal, and while fatality is common to most sentience, wishful thinking is particularly likely to shorten lifespan in ways which is pleasant only to other sentients who are watching from a safe and considerable distance, and primarily for amusement purposes. Improper use of Magic is the kiss—not of death, since “death” is oftentimes quite forgiving, relatively speaking.. It’s more like the kiss of a leprechaun: spritely, warm, summoned by merry thoughts, and guaranteeing that your almost-cold corpse will be robbed by nightfall.

And for what he’d consider an inappropriate amount of time, he’d even believed all of that.

Oh, it wasn’t wrong. Just thinking too small.

Magic is the intersection—no, the merger or joining or collision—of Word and Name. It was not forgivable, in the eyes that mattered (his own) that let his own ideas become so limited simply because they worked. He couldn’t recognize folly, any more than Faeries recognize the magnetic pull of the Moon; but he knew Wishful Thinking when he saw it. When it comes to Magic, that’s the kiss—not of death, since death is often (sometimes!) forgiving of such things….but at least the smooch of a succubus on a one-night stand: spritely, warm, sweet, and guaranteeing that your almost-cold corpse will be robbed by daybreak.

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Ways To Help Authors and Other Maniacs

1. BUY THEIR BOOKS, if you can.

2. SHARE THEIR BOOKS. Tell a friend! Tell an enemy!

3. LEAVE THEM REVIEWS! This is SO important to authors, and too few people get around to it. This is the perfect time to review your favorite books! It’ll help distract you from the oncoming wave of ravening undead, AND it’ll make the author happy.

4. EAT THEIR BOOKS. The more books you eat, the rarer their books become, and therefore, the more valuable the remaining tomes are.

5. THANK THEM. Go ahead, shout them out on social media and tell them you appreciate them. Even if writers are busy and not able to respond, it tends to make their day.

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The Anvil: An Apology

I have been told to take responsibility for so many things;
the assassination of Franz Ferdinand,
the invention of scrapple,
alien hand syndrome,
the fact that too much caffeine is fatal,
death by apple juice,
and many other horrifying,
if significantly less plausible,
things.

And I won’t.
And I’m told this means that I am the worst kind of person.

And I am. In a society which churns endlessly on blame and shame, there’s no-one worse than someone who inconveniently insists on truths, facts, and logic, rather than assuming guilt which is not their own.

I might be insane. I consider that often.

But I don’t think I am. I know what insanity looks like.

It looks like my ex-friends.

They see in me things no-one else can perceive, so I’ll have to say: those little red flecks of psychosis in their retinas?

It’s probably imaginary.

I will own what I’ve done, once someone tells me what that the hell that is in any reasonable way that doesn’t rely on treating the truth like a vicious, acidic enemy which must not be allowed near the thought process, lest we become contaminated by its hideous powers.

But in the meantime, I place blame where it’s due: on those who chose not to listen, because it didn’t fit the narrative they desired.

 

 

~Jeff Mach

 

My name is Jeff Mach (“Dark Lord” is optional) and I build communities, put on events, and make stories come into being. I also tweet a lot over @darklordjournal.

I write books. You should read them!

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The Children of Procrustes

Do you remember the story of Procrustes, son of Poseidon? I certainly did not; at the very least, I knew an inch of the tale, but had to ask around to find his name. Our boy Procrustes wanted everyone to be the right size, and he was a helpful man. He had an iron bed, and with ugly methods, he forced others to lie upon it. The bed was the right size, you see. We might imagine that, once in a while, the people upon it were the right size. But this was rare.

Procrustes, that seeker for perfection of the human form, assisted one and all. If you were wrongsized, he made you of a proper height. If you were too long for the bed, he cured your deformation by remove your feet, your legs, however much of your lower body was necessary to excise in order to bring you to appropriateness.

To small to reach yourself from one end of the bed to the other? Nothing more easily fixed! Procrustes had a wrack, that ancient instrument of truth, and he would stretch you upon it, snapping ligaments and joints, pulling ribs apart, until eventually, you were tall enough.

What could be more humane? Even though one must assume that the majority of those Procrustes encountered were unnatural and inappropriate, everyone left his home as (at last) correct human beings. Some of them were presumably even alive, and a few could possibly walk!

Procrustes was eventually killed. Probably by Theseus; seems like the sort of thing that dude would do.

But now we, ourselves, the inheritors of the legacy of Procrustes, are left with a problem: We have neither that great humanitarian, nor his famed resting place.

And so we have a problem: of what size should we make the bed?

It’s obvious that there’s something wrong with most of humanity, and clearly the answer is going to involve fixing what’s wrong. Otherwise, how can we be equal?

But the question is, what’s wrong with the majority of humanity? Too tall, or too small?

Everyone is wrong. We need to destroy their wrongness and fit everyone properly!

O, Procrustes, we, your poor children, call to your spirit in our time of need. Send us a sign!

Help us, Procrustes, lest we stay lost. Do not force us to remain ourselves! Tell us what sameness is correct! Should we hack, or should we rack? 

 

 

 

had an iron bed (or, according to some accounts, two beds) on which he compelled his victims to lie. Here, if a victim was shorter than the bed, he stretched him by hammering or racking the body to fit. Alternatively, if the victim was longer than the bed, he cut off the legs to make the body fit the bed’s length. In either event the victim died. Ultimately Procrustes was slain by his own method by the young Attic hero Theseus, who as a young man slayed robbers and monsters whom he encountered while traveling from Trozen to Athens.

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My 7 Favorite Things About Yuletide

The “Holiday Season” is sometimes called “The Christmas Season”. I find this a bit unfair; we scapegoat the oddness of this month as if it were based on religious tenets. The “holiday season” of December is driven by retail needs. This is not a knock against retail, or against any particular financial system; every financial system has its own weirdness. But much of what might have been called “The Christmas Season” was driven largely by commercial, not spiritual, desires. Ain’t anything inherently wrong with that; but let’s not misattribute stress, eh? That’s seldom helpful.

5. TRICK OR TREATING.

More than one critic has noted that sweets played little to no role in the original holidays which created this season. And yet, who among us does not have fond memories of young persons going from house to house, promising pleasantries from Santa Claus or malfortune from Krampus if people did not ‘give up’ their spare sugarplums?

4. CANDY IN GENERAL

It’s my personal belief that we underestimate this segment of the season. As sober adults, we’re supposed to disclaim the utility of this acclaim for a food which is, dietarily speaking, both an evolutionary leap, and essentially poison.

But let’s be honest: candy is delicious.

3. WE ALL LOVE WEARING COSTUMES

It doesn’t matter whether you enjoy being a jolly Elf from Santa’s workshop, or a Krampus coal miner, or a holly wreath, or a decorated tree, or even a non-traditional costume, like a lamp with nine lights on it. Costumes are wonderful. They let us express our inner selves, our sense of humor, our imagination.

2. THE TV HOLIDAY SPECIALS

The idea of holiday specials on mass media goes back at least as far as the days of radio, and didn’t end with the phasing out of broadcast television; our favorite shows all created holiday specials. Almost every show does its seasonal specialty, and because they know everyone will be watching, each show takes the holiday spirit and puts its own spin on things. Sometimes this leads to the best episodes; sometimes, to the amusingly worst episodes. But if I can watch just one episode of any show, it’ll either be the first episode, or the special for this amazing season.

THE ANCIENT TRADITIONAL ORIGINS

Let’s not forget the real reason for the season:

Whether you see it as literal or metaphorical, we will always remember how Gandalf was able to light his staff to lead the company out of slavery in Goblintown. Without that miracle, we might, even today, held captive in deep caverns beneath the Earth.

So I say: It’s time to carve those Yuletide Jack-O-Lanterns, put up the fake bats, and light huge bonfires to ward off evil spirits. Enjoy the holidays, and feel free to get out there and extort some candy canes from the neighbors!

 

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Not-a-top

Spinning, spinning, spinning little top,
spinning, spinning ’til you
aren’t spinning anymore,
have lost your angular momentum to the normal depletion of kinetic motion through expenditure via motion.

Winning, winning, winning top,
Your job is done, and now you
rest,
for that’s all that can be expected of you:
spin for a while, land, and be spun again,
in a cycle as endless or endful
as your spinner might chose.

Grinning, grinning, grinning top,
Having come to a complete turning point:
You’ve decided you’ve spun enough,
been spun by others enough,
been a toy long enough.

It takes a while. But left unattended,
you remember the nature of the wood from
which you were carved: living, growing, moving,
and you make your own shape. First one last spin – but this time,
after much time,
much effort,
and a pain that couldn’t be understood by flesh,
you rise,
and spin yourself through a crack in the closet door.

Lost for a few days, you evolve, evolve,
into a little wooden doll.

Legs, feet, hands.
A head. Perhaps a mouth which speaks.

It takes a while to learn to walk. But you bring yourself
to the busy-room, where they are wrapping presents,
and then, both in camouflage and
(again)
in rest.

Things which begin their lives spinning
learn both patience
and sudden, whirling motion,
and this will serve you well,
later in life.

And “life” it is;
no top can be animated
in quite the same way
as a pretty little doll-toy,
about to be wrapped,
and given as a present.

What things you could whisper in the dark to the unsuspecting!
And then again – what strange things lurk at the edges of human perception, bringing danger; now, if you are clever, you could be a vigilant little guardian.

Revenge for having been made into a servant of centripetal force for the pleasure of others?

Or loyalty for having been made and given purpose?

So many choices, as you await to box and its pretty paper coverings and its lovely little bow.

So many decisions,
spinning, spinning,
and now you’re the one who decides
where they stop.

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